In a comment made yesterday at a televised town hall, U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden referred to Hungary and Poland alongside Belarus as “totalitarian regimes,” adding that President Donald Trump apparently “supports all the thugs in the world.”
Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, took to his official Facebook page and responded in a short video.
“We may still remember the kind of Central European policy the democrats pursued for 8 years; we may still recall the continuous lecturing, accusations and attacks,” FM Szijjártó began his video statement, reminding viewers that, during his term as Vice President, Joe Biden was “particularly busy” with foreign policy.
“We, Hungarians, have experienced this firsthand,” Szijjártó said, referring to occasions when members of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Budapest openly took part in opposition protests and published “extraordinarily biased” statements with the aim of supporting left-liberal parties and attacking the Hungarian government.
There was a period during his term as VP, the Hungarian FM continued, when, and I exaggerate a bit, Biden spent more of his time outside D.C. in Ukraine than in rural America.
“This was the time when his son happened to be a chief executive at a key Ukrainian energy company; this was also the time when there were deals in the Ukrainian energy sector that were suspected of being corrupt,” FM Szijjártó said in the video statement.
According to the foreign minister, Joe Biden began talking about Central Europe again days ago when he made a series of completely false and undignified statements about Hungary and Poland. “But,” Szijjártó continued, “it would be best if Joe Biden could answer some of those old questions that have been out there for a while, before attacking Central Europe.
“It would be great if Joe Biden could tell us why he put pressure on the Ukrainian government to fire its chief prosecutor, and how all of this related to the investigation into his son’s Ukrainian energy deals grinding to a halt,” Foreign Minister Szijjártó asked.