Tucker Carlson
Fox News host Tucker Carlson discusses 'Populism and the Right' during the National Review Institute's Ideas Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC.
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  • Fox News host Tucker Carlson will be spending the week in Budapest, meeting Hungarian PM Viktor Orban.
  • He will also be speaking at a far-right conference in Hungary on Saturday.
  • Orban spent $265,000 to arrange an interview with Carlson in 2019, according to one government watchdog.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced on Monday evening that he would be broadcasting his show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" this week from Budapest, as he visits the Hungarian capital and meets with the controversial Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Carlson is also billed to speak on Saturday at a far-right conference in Budapest called MCC Feszt, according to its website, in a program titled "The World According to Tucker Carlson."

His announcement was made just after he met with Hungarian leader Orban, who on Monday posted a Facebook photo of the pair smiling while seemingly in conversation.

Carlson has commended Orban before for his policies that reward Hungarian families for having more children as the country faces declining birth rates.

"Hungary's leaders actually care about making sure their own people thrive. Instead of promising the nation's wealth to every illegal immigrant from the third world, they're using tax dollars to uplift their own people," he said on his show in 2019.

Orban's government paid $265,000 to a DC lobbying firm in the same year to coordinate an interview with Carlson's show, according to Anna Massaoglia, an investigative researcher for government transparency watchdog Open Secrets.

Since he was elected in 2010, Orban has received criticism from Western leaders and human rights groups for his autocratic control of the media, judiciary, and human rights in Hungary.

Last year, the Hungarian parliament passed emergency laws that allow Orban to rule without term limits and introduces jail terms for those spreading disinformation about COVID-19. Critics fear he may use those laws against his opponents and critics.

US-based human rights group Freedom House said in 2020 that Orban's government has "dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions."

Insider has reached out to Fox News for comment.

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