What moving my family to Budapest has taught me about America



We are a few weeks into our travel experience: long enough to form basic impressions, but not quite long enough to develop confident insights into what all this means for our family. Still, I think that the basic impressions are worth documenting, even if I’m someday surprised by future changes or reversals.

The first thing that stands out to me about life here in Budapest is the near-universal respect for public space, be it public school, public parks, or public transportation. Cleanliness and accessibility in all these areas add a basic ease to our day-to-day life here that just isn’t present in America.

Like a boiled frog, I think I’ve grown accustomed to certain experiences in America’s public spaces, coming to regard them as inevitable, as 'part and parcel' of living in a major city.

My eldest had her first (ever) day of school here in Budapest. It is a public school formed by a basic Montessori philosophy, which means the schedules are almost entirely play-based. Upon entering the school, children put on their “inside shoes,” wash their hands, and say good morning to their teachers. They play outside, then inside, where they are taught to put their toys away after finishing.

They garden, they do arts and crafts, and they are fed nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day, which cost me less than $15.00 per month. Teachers are gentle and empathetic; during the first weeks, parents may stay as long as necessary so that the child can acclimate, and children may freely take “mommy days” off of school, free instead to be with family.

Parents can pick their children up any time after lunch. Any ideological activism regarding gender and sexuality is punishable by law, but the people involved would never think of such a thing in the first place. From what I can tell, these provisions were made preventively by conservative Hungarians in Parliament who see America and the rest of the West as a petri dish for self-destructive mind viruses.

I’m truly startled by the high quality and low cost of early childhood development programs. Beyond school, these are present in every museum, the opera, and other artistic hubs. The playground situation is similarly, wonderfully surprising. Almost every block has a well-maintained, safe, enclosed, and well-lit playground with segments dedicated to various age groups. Vagrancy and criminality exist but are relatively rare; I have not yet seen or encountered a violently mentally ill person accosting another pedestrian. It isn’t uncommon for families to gather at playgrounds after dark, something that is basically unthinkable in America.

Getting to wherever we want to go — the zoo, playgrounds, museums, etc. — is basically seamless. Public transportation is similarly clean, free of dubious characters, and accessible. Trams, buses, and metros almost always have handicap and stroller-accessible doors and spaces to store even a huge stroller.

The people of Budapest are as family-friendly as their infrastructure. It is not uncommon for an elderly lady to smile and sit patiently with a stranger’s child on the tram. I have not received any scathing glances from passersby. I truly feel a spirit of understanding and patience for children. They can eat at restaurants and be kids without fear of reprimand.

Like a boiled frog, I think I’ve grown accustomed to certain experiences in America’s public spaces, coming to regard them as inevitable, as "part and parcel” of living in a major city. But the endless chain of instance after instance after instance of unsavory, antisocial behavior contributes to an underlying anxiety, rage, and sense of being trapped at home, especially as a mother of young children. In Charlotte, my husband and I basically stopped going downtown for date nights after being accosted by vagrants and followed to our car on one unfortunate anniversary.

Legal, technical freedom may be enshrined in our founding documents. But not a city in America today can boast that its citizens are free to walk past nightfall without fear of violence. In the past few years, major cities across America have experienced serious increases in violent crime as well as major spikes in traffic fatalities due to recklessness.

I felt it in Charlotte before we left. Despite increased enforcement from officers, our police department saw an 8% increase in violent crimes in 2024. This includes homicides (+36%), aggravated assaults (+9%), and juvenile property crime (+19%), among other things. In D.C., my old stomping grounds, violent crime also spiked nearly 40%, driven largely by a surge of murder, armed robberies, and carjackings, many of them also perpetrated by kids.

That this most basic quality of freedom — as a mode of being in the world, rather than its legal iteration — would make daily life better seems like such an obvious point. It stands out because of the irony in the comparison to a country that has been ruled by communist dictatorship in recent history. Of course, the contours of criminality in America are a third rail, politicized beyond the bounds of polite conversation. This is a tragedy, too, not least because our prissy delay of plain justice just leaves the problem to our children. An object in motion stays in motion.

It hasn’t been long, but living here in Budapest, I get the sense that a more peaceful life is possible — for ourselves and for our posterity.

Sour cherry turnovers: A tart Hungarian staple to start the day



Every morning, as my kindergartener and I embark on her trip to school, we stop at a cafe for breakfast and a coffee. I love the routine, and Middle European cafe culture in general, because it allows me to connect with her before she starts her day and further assimilates us in the country in which we are grateful guests. It’s in these little moments where I get a sense of Hungarian lifestyle and of the good things I might integrate into my own when I return home.

These delicious homemade turnovers are filled with tart cherries, wrapped with the butter and richness of puff pastry to balance each bite. They are my daughter’s favorite. A Hungarian staple!

Sour Cherry Turnovers

Ingredients

  • 1 pound sour cherries, pitted
  • ½ cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • Good pinch of salt
  • 1 pound puff pastry, store bought or homemade

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, with the oven rack in the middle position. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Put the pitted cherries, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt in a medium bowl, and toss to combine. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes and then put it into a strainer set over a bowl. Let the cherry juice drain, and set the juice aside for later. Put the strained cherries back in their original bowl.
  3. Gently flour your work surface, and roll each piece of the pastry dough into a 10-inch square. Cut each square into four 5-inch squares, for a total of 8 squares.
  4. Place 2 tablespoons of the cherry mixture into the center of each square of dough, and then brush the edges of each square with some of the reserved juice. Fold each square of dough to make a triangle, and crimp the edges with a fork to seal. Move the triangles to the prepared baking sheets, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
  5. Brush the tops of the turnovers with more of the cherry juice and generously sprinkle the tops with sugar. Bake the turnovers until golden brown (20-25 minutes), rotating the pan halfway through. Move the turnovers off the baking sheet to a wire rack and cool slightly. Serve warm.

Pistachio cream: Hungary's sweet and versatile staple



A seemingly endless variety of quaint cafes pepper the pedestrian street where Saint Michael’s Church peeks over downtown Budapest. Bells and smells make the area too sweet to resist, especially on Sunday after mass. It was there, yesterday, where my husband and I sat down for a coffee and chimney cake — a classic Hungarian pastry — with our children.

I ordered one filled with pistachio cream; everyone was absolutely delighted by the taste and texture. We don’t typically find that in America, but here, it’s a sweet staple.

I thought I’d share, for novelty’s sake! Pistachio cream in particular has lots of use in the kitchen. You can spread it on a slice of bread or use it to garnish desserts, cakes, and biscuits. My favorite might just be to include it in homemade ice cream.

Of course, we can’t delude ourselves about excessive sugar intake, but pistachios have surprising health benefits that do something to mitigate the indulgence.

They stimulate a good mood and fight stress. They are good for longevity. They protect eyesight. They help the health of bones and teeth. They fight high blood pressure thanks to the potassium content. They prevent type II diabetes: high levels of phosphorus keep the level of glucose in the blood under control and break down amino acids. They lower bad cholesterol. They have anticancer properties thanks to beta carotene, which helps prevent tumors. They help anemia, thanks to high copper levels. They fight infections and strengthen the immune system. Mineral salts such as zinc, selenium, lutein, and vitamin H are a boon to beauty. Finally, they contain Omega 3 and Omega 6, ideal during pregnancy for the correct development of the fetal nervous system.

With the following simple ingredients, you can prepare a genuine pistachio nutella, far healthier and better for you than supermarket products (just check the ingredients on the labels).

Ingredients

  • 200g pistachios (unroasted, unsalted)
  • 150g of good quality white chocolate
  • 100g of brown sugar
  • 30g of butter
  • 80ml of whole milk

Instructions

  1. Bring an inch or two of water in a saucepan to a boil.
  1. Add 200 grams of pistachios and let them boil for a maximum of 8-10 minutes. In doing this, the external purple skin will detach from the grain.
  1. Drain the pistachios, and put them to dry on a clean cloth, preferably cotton or otherwise soft and without lint.
  1. Arrange the pistachios in the center of the cloth and close the ends, trying to form a sort of bag. Now, holding the handle, shake the bag until all the purple cuticles detach from the grain. Remove the remaining purple coating with your hands. Dry the pistachios well in order to have them ready to use.
  1. Once dry, mill the pistachios to a fine grain in a blender.
  1. Melt the 150 grams of white chocolate in a saucepan.
  1. Add 30 grams of butter and then also 80 ml of milk. Stir gently until you reach a creamy consistency.
  1. As soon as the chocolate has reached the right density, add the milled pistachio and 100 grams of brown sugar. Mix everything until you get a creamy mousse.
  1. If, during the process, you find that the mixture is too thick, add a little more milk.
  1. Pour the pistachio cream into a glass container (previously sterilized with boiling water). Leave to cool naturally.
  1. Store in the refrigerator.

To save civilization, become a happy warrior



I used to find myself quietly, yet haughtily, indignant about other people’s unwillingness to have more kids. This is a sentence that should make the reader cringe. It certainly has that effect on the writer.

Our society’s drastically declining birth rate (starkly represented as a precariously top-heavy, upside-down pyramid) and its potential consequences inspire anxiety.

At times, wallowing in doom and gloom seems preferable to facing up to the massive responsibility of raising the children I birthed.

Who will be there to run all the critical functions of an advanced society? Who will be there to take care of the elderly?

Who will be there to maintain our Western traditions and unspoken moral codes before wave after wave of immigrants from high birthrate societies arrive, immigrants largely unwilling to assimilate and unconcerned with becoming productive citizens?

Who will save us from ourselves?

Cleaning our room

When I discovered Jordan Peterson in 2015, I was a junior in college. By then, campus leftism was dialing up in ways that had begun to grate my conscience — even as a standard-issue lib.

I didn’t like the fact that the administration had begun sending surveys requesting my pronouns, asking how it could better accommodate social contagions that were a strange minority, almost universally rejected by the student body.

There was one guy who wore dresses. I once found myself alone in a bathroom with him and left as soon as I noticed we were alone, the hair on my neck bristling.

Peterson’s now infamous exhortation to “clean your room” spoke to me. He invited students who concerned themselves too intensely with the state of the world — be it the impending climate apocalypse or their peers’ “transphobic” use of standard English — to turn their attention to more immediate, personal responsibilities.

Instantiate order in all the small ways first, he said. If you aren’t capable of the small, you’ll never be capable of the large things that currently overwhelm you. The message, simple as it was (our mothers had been saying something similar for years), was revolutionary. For those with ears to hear, it was liberating.

New specters

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

The liberation was short-lived. While I no longer feared the prevailing liberal bugaboos, other specters emerged to haunt me. Enthralled by my new “dissident” stance, it didn’t occur to me that I had simply swapped one distraction for another. Surely, I was nothing like those misguided activist-students Peterson humbled in those iconic YouTube videos.

This habit of mind — seeing every political dispute in the most totalizing, civilization-threatening terms possible — has been hard to shake, especially given my flair for the dramatic.

For the most part, I’ve successfully confined my political despair to my online interactions. But lately, I’ve noticed it bleeding into my real life. My despair distracts me. Opening X first thing in the morning sets the day up for failure. Have I become addicted to upsetting myself? Is this any way to live?

'Hath much to love'

Wordsworth’s “Character of the Happy Warrior” comes to mind:

—He who, though thus endued as with a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;

Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,

Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—

Can we maintain a sense of civilizational purpose without indulging despairing images of the future we strive to avoid?

What optimism requires

We can — and must. In fact, this is essential to the character of the happy warrior: hope without fear, courage without anger, purpose without despair.

Collapse — however we imagine it — may still be imminent. My concerns are still valid; the denial of base reality at the heart of transgender ideology, for example, remains dangerous.

But I can acknowledge this truth without letting it overwhelm me. Our family’s recent move to Budapest from suburban South Carolina has included all the expected challenges, as well as some unexpected ones.

At times, wallowing in gloom and doom seems preferable to facing up to the massive responsibility of raising the children I birthed, and I realize that I’m no less tempted by such negative escapism than I was as a liberal.

What optimism requires is far more tedious and labor-intensive. Here, as in much of life, the “fidelity” Wordsworth mentions makes all the difference. The “homefelt pleasures and ... gentle scenes” of domestic life aren’t distractions from some larger battle but the very foundation of any civilization worth saving.

How to survive international travel with 3 kids under 3



Richard Hanania recently posted a frank and excellent essay called The Opportunity Costs of Having Kids, where he quoted Otto von Bismarck, sympathizing with one of the world’s great statesman’s disdain for traveling with young ones. Bismarck wrote:

The nearer it comes the more I see this as a ticket to the madhouse or to the Upper Chamber of parliament for life. I see myself with children on the platform at Genthin station, then in the compartment where both satisfy their needs ruthlessly and emit an evil stink, the surrounding society holding its nose. Johanna too embarrassed to give the baby the breast so he screams himself blue, the battle with the crowd, the inn, screaming children on Stettin station and in Angermünde 1 hour waiting for horses, packing up, and how do we get from Kröchlendorf to Külz? If we had to spend the night in Stettin, that would be terrible. I went through that last year with Marie and her screaming … I am, I feel, somebody to whom a dreadful injustice has been done. Next year I shall have to travel with three cradles, three nurses, nappies for three, bed clothes; I wake at 6 in the morning in a gentle rage and cannot sleep at night because I am haunted by all sorts of travel pictures, which my fantasy paints in the blackest hues, right to the picnics in the dune of Stolpmünde. And if there were only daily payments for this but instead it causes the ruin of a once flourishing fortune by traveling with infants — I am very unhappy.

Oh, dear. I’m sorry to say the truth of the matter is indeed as brutal as Bismarck describes, and like so many things about kids, there’s really no way around the brutality other than through with your chin held high, despite it all.

Peace — at least the kind you once enjoyed as a single person — is one of the casualties of parenthood, and no quantity of ethereal tradwife reels on Instagram are likely to change that.

My expectations were low, and they were met! Clementine screamed at the top of her lungs the entire way through security! Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to prepare for the worst; or, as I like to call it: front loading grace.

Before I get into the nitty gritty details, let me also recommend cultivating patience — both with your children and with yourself. It takes time to adjust.

As for my family, now that we’re adjusting to a sleep schedule, things are improving, and I’m confident that once we get our sea legs, we will enjoy ourselves more than we don’t. We are learning how to be in a new place, while the kids are simply learning to be civilized human beings. It takes time.

The following are some items that really helped. If there’s anything notable here, it’s that we don’t have iPads. That said, we relied on the provided screens, and yes, my 3-year-old watched three movies.

Wonderfold Wagon

I hope I can meme a sponsorship into existence here, because I could sing the praises of the Wonderfold Wagon all day long.

Americans have been some of the greatest innovators in the field of child transportation, partially of necessity. The Wonderfold, designed and manufactured in California, lives up to the hype.

This wagon is heavy, but it holds our kids and, in the airport, much of our luggage. We checked a bag for each person, had carry-ons, and personal bags. The wagon held the carry-ons and the kids comfortably. At the airport, you can request to check the bag at the gate. If your flight is especially full, you can also check carry-ons for free, so be sure to ask about that and make sure you keep your necessities in the personal bags if so.

Since we’ve been here, the wagon has been amazing for keeping the children contained. Because it’s so big with a flat bottom, they can even nap inside. It truly doubles as a pack-and-play for the baby.

We have the W4 Luxe model. It comes with all sorts of accoutrements, and some are sold separately: removable seats with seatbelts, a cupholder, a tray, a canopy. I bought this wagon cover for checking it, and it was not even remotely damaged (I saw two other families with broken strollers at the end of the day).

You will check the wagon at the gate and can request if you have layovers (as we did, one in Munich) to receive it again at each stop.

If you are a reasonable person who spaced their children in a more reasonable manner, then this might not be necessary, but none of ours are yet capable of self-government, so this portable jailhouse is just perfect for us!

Annie's Homegrown snacks

Snacks are a time-honored way of keeping toddlers on an even keel. My requirements are that they be relatively healthy and leave a minimal mess — the latter especially important within the confines of a typical airplane seat. As usual, my go-to purveyor was Annie’s Homegrown, founded by Connecticut farmer and entrepreneur Annie Withey in 1989.

I bought variety packs of cheddar bunnies, bunny grahams, fruit leather, and fruit snacks. These were excellent ways to curb meltdowns at various junctures and were small enough to fit into their surprise backpacks (see section three).

Surprise backpacks

Novelty is also an efficient way to stave off restlessness. So I packed each child a backpack with new toys that they could use on the plane. They included:

This worked really well! The Bluey camera proved to be an especially good investment. My mother-in-law recently got me a camera, and my eldest, who is my shadow, is especially excited to learn photography in her own way, too. Plus, I’ll enjoy seeing life through her eyes on the camera roll when all is said and done.

First aid kit

My baby has allergies, and I was worried about being able to find his OTC Zyrtec overseas. Also, the prospect of pouring liquid medicine on a cramped plane while they were crawling all over me was daunting. So I found some single-use, premeasured vials of various medications: Diphenhydramine for allergy relief (and to induce drowsiness ...) as well as acetaminophen for fevers and guaifenesin for cough and congestion. The brand, DrKids, is a subsidiary of the Calm Company, out of Sarasota, Floridaa.

I randomly grabbed Band-Aids and antibiotic ointment to go with the rest of George’s eczema kit, and I’m glad I did, because not three minutes into the trip, he bumped his eyebrow on the stroller and broke skin. Welly bandages are my favorite. Cute and, most importantly, effective.

Lollipops

Lollipops help with the air-pressure changes. 10/10. And these taste great with no artificial nonsense.

Honorable mentions because the European lack of air conditioning feels like hell: a 100% cotton change of clothes, a portable fan, and cooling wipes.

I plan on publishing a guide every week on whatever I learn along the way, because I’m learning a lot. The hard way, most times.

Is The Economy Behind The Low Birth Rate? Unlikely

Stop feeding the victimhood complex.

Hungary refuses to embrace European Union's LGBT activism and migration policies



The European Union wants uniformity of vision and policy among its remaining member states. To this end, bureaucrats in Brussels have worked to crush dissent wherever it crops up. This cultural imperialism has proven ineffective against Hungary, which refuses to embrace the leftist orthodoxies of the day despite facing steep financial penalties for doing so.

Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, made clear Thursday that while the Hungarian government is open to meeting various EU standards, "it would be undemocratic and unacceptable" to cave on policy issues of importance to the Hungarian people, particularly those concerning LGBT indoctrination and open borders.

What's the background?

In recent years, Hungary and Poland have resisted EU demands concerning various matters of policy and governance. This resistance — the product of mandates dictated by their respective populations through fair and free elections — has been characterized as a violation of both countries' respective EU member agreements promising to uphold democratic standards and common values.

The BBC noted that Orbán's Hungary has been accused of various supposed improprieties, including the curbing of minority rights.

A sticking point for leftists in Brussels as well as the Biden administration has been a law, approved in 2021 by Hungary's National Assembly in a 157-1 vote, which increased the punishment for convicted pedophiles and banned LGBT propaganda targeting children.

Orbán has also drawn the ire of EU officials for limiting the influx of so-called asylum-seekers to Hungary by requiring economic migrants and other foreign nationals to submit pre-asylum applications at its missions to Serbia or Ukraine. Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion are, however, exempt, reported Politico.

Brussels has similarly blasted Poland for various policy manifestations of its Christian national identity but accused its former government of undermining the independence of its courts.

To induce compliance, the EU starved both nations of billions of dollars in funding, including pandemic recovery funds that were otherwise given in abundance to other member states. This pressure campaign came to a head in December 2022 when the European Court of Justice ruled that funding was conditional on meeting the EU's so-called democratic standards.

The bloc blocks Hungary

After eight years of resistance with the conservative Law and Justice Party at the helm, Poland appears to be on the verge of capitulation under the new leadership of incoming premier and former European Council President Donald Tusk.

"We have confirmation from the European Commission — Poland meets the last three conditions necessary for the full mobilization of structural funds — €76 billion for the implementation of programs until 2027," Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nalęcz, the funds and regional policy minister, said on Friday.

Budapest, on the other hand, faces a longer road toward appeasement, which Orbán appears uninterested in traveling.

According to EuroNews, Hungary had to meet 27 "super milestones" as well as four additional "horizontal enabling conditions" to receive the whole of the over $32 billion owed to Hungary that has been frozen.

Hungary managed to unlock over $10.9 billion of the funds last month, having apparently addressed the EU's concerns about judicial reform. However, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen suggested last week that Hungary would have cave to LGBT activist demands, guarantee the right of so-called asylum, and bolster academic freedom to thaw out the remainder of the funds, reported Barron's.

The funds "will remain blocked until Hungary fulfills all the necessary conditions," said Leyen.

The European Parliament is not content to even allow Hungary to have the $10.9 billion it is owed. Last week, the legislature reportedly threatened to sue the EU's executive arm over the release of the funds to Hungary. It also raised the possibility of theoretically stripping Budapest of its EU voting rights.

"Parliament will look into whether legal action should be pursued to overturn the decision to partially unfreeze funds, and notes that it can use an array of legal and political measures," the legislature said in a statement.

Digging in

The Hungarian government has underscored that the democratic will of its people is incompatible with so-called democratic standards abroad.

Gergely Gulyas stressed Thursday that there would be "limits" to reaching an agreement with the EU, given what is demanded runs contrary to the will of Hungarian voters, reported the Associated Press.

"The Hungarian government is willing to reach an agreement with the Commission, but in cases where people have expressed a clear opinion, it would be undemocratic and unacceptable," said Gulyas. "For Hungary, even despite the will of the European Commission, it is unacceptable to spread LGBTQ propaganda among children, and we also cannot abandon our position on migration issues."

Orbán indicated in a Friday radio broadcast, "The only thing we can say, very calmly, as a reply is that there there is not enough money in the world to force us to let migrants in. There is not enough money in the world for us to allow them to take away our country. We will not create conditions like we see in Western European states — the threat of terrorism, crime, I could go on and on."

"And there is not enough money in the world for which we would put our children or grandchildren in the hands of LGBTQ activists. That's impossible," added the prime minister.

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico commended Orbán last week for standing up for his country's sovereignty and indicated further he would shoot down any effort by the European Parliament to wrest away Hungary's voting rights in the legislature.

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Joel Carillet/Getty Images

Destroying Robert E. Lee’s statue marks a historic low point, but Hungary shows it doesn’t have to be the endpoint

Even if you don't sympathize with the Confederacy, you should see that the destruction of Confederate statues is the start, not the end, of this movement.

Joe Scarborough Hates Authoritarian Behavior Except When It’s From Biden Or Zelensky

Believe it or not, Joe Scarborough still has an MSNBC show that’s influential in Washington and is still embarrassing himself on national television in ways that are truly awe-inspiring. Scarborough on Tuesday delivered what he clearly believed would be a sure face melter. “It’s troubling to me he calls Orban one of the strongest leaders […]

Uncensored Andrew Tate Interview by Tucker Ignites Controversy



Andrew Tate is no stranger to controversy.

The social media icon rose to internet fame with a message that, while oftentimes harsh, encourages young men to leave what he calls “the Matrix.” After his meteoric rise, he was swiftly charged with crimes in Romania.

He’s currently in Romania on house arrest, but that didn’t stop Tucker Carlson from flying to the country that Tate calls “corrupt” and interviewing the influencer.

Tucker asks Tate what it is about his message that’s driving so many people crazy — and Tate did not disappoint.

“My message is traditional masculinity. My message is to stand up and say what you mean and mean what you say,” Tate explains, adding, “and even going to the gym nowadays is an act of defiance because when you have a man who’s built with any degree of principle, you say ‘no’ to things.”

Tate believes that by offering men the opportunity to free themselves of mediocrity, he has become an enemy of the state.

“With the massive influence I’ve gained, I think they look at me and go, ‘Ah, he’s helping men resist the slave programming. We don’t need him around. We need to empty their brains so we can inject the slave programming and convince men to be eunuchs.’”

The interview became even more controversial as the two began to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Tucker asks Tate why it seems our government, and many American citizens, are in complete support of the war in Ukraine and against Russia.

“Well, the first thing I think we should all do, is I think we should all give Putin credit for curing COVID,” Tate jokes, “because when his invasion happened, COVID went away.”

Tate continues: “If you are naïve enough to believe that there are good guys and bad guys in wars, and it’s as simple as good and bad and that the bad guys are crazy, good guys want freedom, then you need to do a little bit more investigation into what’s really happening.”

Tucker is visibly impressed by his answer — and he lets Tate know it.

“That’s the truest thing, what you just said. And anyone who doesn’t understand that should shut the f*** up.”


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