The Twenty-Four Two Podcast

242.news
  • 0.0 (0)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Talking about Europe's destructive recreation twentyfourtwo.substack.com

Episodes

  1. "A kind of false flag operation may be committed"

    6D AGO

    "A kind of false flag operation may be committed"

    In a little over 50 days, Hungarians will vote in a pivotal election that could remove Trump ally Viktor Orbán after 16 years as prime minister and replace him with Péter Magyar, a defector from Orbán’s Fidesz movement. If you want a respite from US politics but crave the battle between the open society and its enemies, subscribe to this weekly podcast covering a campaign that is rapidly turning into the dirtiest in the post-communist era - culminating in the threatened release of a illicitly filmed Magyar sex tape. The tricks could get a lot dirtier, warns this week’s guest Géza Jeszenszky, Hungary’s first post-communist foreign minister. Together with prime minister József Antall, he began the process of Hungary’s accession to the EU and NATO and sought to repair the now century-long damage caused by the Trianon treaty that ceded more than 2 million ethnic Hungarians to modern-day Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. At every election since 2010, Orbán has created bogeymen like George Soros to motivate his base. In 2022, he stoked fears that Hungarians would be sucked into a western war against Russia. In the four years since, his peacenikery has since evolved into a full-on anti-Ukrainianism that is growing as election day approaches. In the past week alone, Orbán has described Ukraine as Hungary’s “enemy” and the EU’s plans to fast-track Kyiv’s accession as an “open declaration of war” against Budapest. Jeszenszky fears this hysterical rhetoric is less about mobilising support and more about laying the groundwork for a constitutional coup - a fear that only grew after reports in the Fidesz-allied media of threats by a ‘Ukrainian soldier’ to bomb schools in Hajdú–Bihar county. “My fear is that the very opposite is in his mind or in the mind of people around him: to postpone the election, not to hold the election,” he says, pointing out that the Fidesz-dominated parliament recently extended Hungary’s Covid-era emergency laws until mid-May. “Many of us, many Hungarians who are not really too friendly to Orbán can imagine that a kind of false flag operation may be committed - obviously directly by Russians or with the help of Russia - and something may happen, which can be presented as an act of aggression against Hungary”. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, is a podcast from 242.news - newsletter focused on the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    58 min
  2. “Trump hasn't been the boon to Orbán that many expected”

    FEB 8

    “Trump hasn't been the boon to Orbán that many expected”

    On April 12, Hungarians will vote in an election with ripple effects well beyond their borders. For the first time since 2010, MAGA icon Viktor Orbán looks beatable – at the hands of Péter Magyar, a defector from his Fidesz movement. If you need a detox from US politics but still crave a nail-biting battle over the future of liberal democracy, this is the podcast series for you. Dropping every Sunday between now and Hungary’s election night, we bring you the latest campaign news plus expert guests covering politics, economics, history and culture. This week, that guest is Zselyke Csaky from the Centre for European Reform in Brussels - author of a recent report on the election. A specialist in the EU’s institutions, elections, the rule of law and democratic backsliding, Zselyke was previously a researcher at EUI and Freedom House and is a graduate of the Central European University and Corvinus University Budapest. We discuss how Magyar’s foreign policy would differ from Orbán’s, whether Magyar could form an eastern counterweight to the EU’s Franco-German axis, his chances of getting his hands on €18 billion of suspended EU funds for Hungary, and Donald Trump’s failure to provide meaningful support to Orbán. “Trump hasn’t been the boon to Orban that many expected,” says Csaky. “Certainly he has received support rhetorically, and perhaps - although, at this point, it seems unlikely - Trump will visit Hungary before the vote. But, for Hungary itself, Trump hasn’t been that much of a success story - with the trade tariffs, with the uncertainty economically”. Most EU countries and its Brussels institutions would welcome a change of government in April, she says, but “at the same time, I think there are expectations among some in Brussels that may be unrealistic. One expectation is that once Orbán is gone, everything will be fine. I would just like to dispel that myth, because it’s easy to point to Orbán as the person who blocks everything in Brussels right now. But we know that, behind him, there are other member states who like to hide, depending on interest. If Orbán is gone, these disagreements might come out into the open”. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, is a podcast from 242.news - newsletter focused on the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    48 min
  3. “People are waiting for change, so there is a huge expectation”

    FEB 1

    “People are waiting for change, so there is a huge expectation”

    In April, eight million Hungarians will vote in an election whose results will resound across Europe and the US. For the first time in 15 years, MAGA icon Viktor Orbán looks beatable – at the hands of Orbánist defector Péter Magyar. Have you been deranged by a decade of Trumpism? Do you need a nail-biting battle over the future of liberal democracy, but without Orange Man? If so, this is the podcast series for you. Dropping every Sunday between now and election night in Hungary, we bring you the latest campaign news plus expert guests covering politics, economics, history and culture. This week’s guest is Gábor Bojár, one of Hungary’s richest men – a “red baron” who supports the opposition and welcomes a wealth tax. Under Orbán’s crony capitalism, “a lot of entrepreneurial spirit is killed or depressed,” he says. “So, a lot of energy can be freed and … it can happen easily because people are waiting for change, so there is a huge expectation, just like the expectation which happened at the time of the system changing in ‘89”. “I do not feel that, from his soul, Péter Magyar would be a liberal democrat. He is not. But he will do what the people want, and we want liberal democracy,” says Bojár, reassured by Magyar’s choice of shadow ministers for finance, foreign affairs, and energy. But could he be just another Orbán? “There is a risk. No question, this risk is there, but at least there is a chance … If Orbán stays, it’s sure”. Gábor Bojár founded Graphisoft as a two-man firm in 1982 under communism; by the time he sold it in 2007, it was a global leader in 3D building-modelling software. Worth more than €80 million today, according to Forbes, Bojár oversees the Aquincum Institute of Technology (AIT), which he founded. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, is a podcast from 242.news - newsletter focused on the remaking of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    43 min
  4. "The central bank take over of MAGA dreams"

    JAN 25

    "The central bank take over of MAGA dreams"

    Donald Trump’s greatest success so far has been in bypassing Congress, packing the Supreme Court, and populating agencies and law enforcement with political loyalists. He failed to do this in his first term and paid the price in 2020. But, by sticking to the Project 2025 programme inspired by Viktor Orbán’s 15-year-long capture of Hungary’s institutions, Trumpism has made itself harder to dislodge. To Trump’s great frustration, however, the Federal Reserve has proved resilient despite his constant attacks on Chair (“Too Late”) Jerome Powell, attempts to remake the board of governors, and a criminal inquiry. Powell’s successor, who will be named next week, knows what to expect if he fails to deliver rapid interest-rate cuts. Hungary has been here before. After Orbán returned to power in 2010 and tamed the media, universities, regulators and the judiciary, he turned on the central bank (MNB). In 2013, he imposed his right-hand man as governor, who cleaned house and imported heterodox policymaking. Orbán got his low interest rates but Hungary eventually paid a price in lost policy credibility, high inflation, weak growth and a devalued currency – factors threatening Orbán’s re-election in April. As an MNB deputy governor from 2007-13, Júlia Király experienced this annexation of the central bank from the inside. Now a professor of finance and monetary economics at the International Business School in Budapest, Júlia talks about this, the bill that eventually came due and the huge fiscal challenges facing the next government. “The way she talks about it, this was the central bank take over of MAGA dreams,” says Twenty-Four Two co-host Tim G. Jones. “Not only did they manage to get all their people in and get the people who were not aligned with Fidesz out but they also managed to carry out a discretionary monetary policy”. Twenty-Four Two is hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen and is a podcast from 242.news - a newsletter focused on the remaking of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    46 min
  5. “Péter Magyar is a much more dangerous opponent for the government than any other former challenger”

    JAN 18

    “Péter Magyar is a much more dangerous opponent for the government than any other former challenger”

    When Hungarians voted in elections to the European Parliament in 2024, Dániel Róna was alone in predicting a 30% vote for the insurgent campaign of former regime insider Péter Magyar and his Tisza party. Since then, Magyar’s support has only grown so that, as a national election approaches on April 12, Róna’s 21 Research Centre – in common with all independent pollsters – is convinced that Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz movement are at their most vulnerable since taking power in 2010. “We conduct many polls – face-to-face polls, phone polls, hybrid surveys, online surveys – and all of them show the same tendency that Tisza has a sizeable lead over Fidesz, and other parties became more and more insignificant,” Róna tells the Twenty-Four Two podcast. Until now, Orbán’s opposition cannibalised each other’s votes and made little attempt to appeal to the soft Fidesz electorate. “Péter Magyar is the first one who has the priority to do that, and that matters a lot … That’s one of the reasons why Péter Magyar is a much more dangerous opponent for the government than any other former challenger”. However, Róna still believes the April election is a toss-up. “I know it sounds strange because, in most democracies, with such a significant lead ... the chances shouldn’t be that close. But it’s Hungary. It’s not a liberal democracy. It’s an authoritarian regime or a hybrid regime or spin dictatorship”. Fidesz has a huge financial and media advantage and an electoral system that means Tisza needs at least a five-point popular lead to secure a one-seat parliamentary majority. Twenty-Four Two is hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen and is a podcast from 242.news - a newsletter focused on the remaking of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    45 min
  6. "The point is how Orbán can react to a possible defeat"

    JAN 11

    "The point is how Orbán can react to a possible defeat"

    Very soon, eight million Hungarians will vote in an election whose results will resound across Europe and the US. For the first time in 15 years, MAGA icons Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz movement look beatable - this time at the hands of a defector, Péter Magyar, and his Tisza party. Have you been deranged by a decade of Trumpism? Do you need a nail-biting political battle over the future of liberal democracy but without Orange Man and his cult? If so, this is the podcast series for you. Dropping every Sunday between now and election night in Hungary, this special series will bring the latest campaign news and expert guests covering politics, economics, history and culture. This week’s guest is Stefano Bottoni - an Italian-Hungarian historian and one-time Orbán admirer, whose critical biography of the prime minister sold more than 18,000 copies and topped Hungary’s best-seller lists despite ghosting from local publishers. When opinion polls were tight in 2022, Stefano still expected Orbán’s re-election but now he’s not so sure. “The point here is not how strong Tisza is; Tisza is strong and won’t weaken. The point is how Orbán could react to a possible defeat, and we have heard every kind of rumour here from postponing the elections due to the ‘state of exception’ ... or switching to a presidential system ... allowing Orbán to become president of the republic”. Aside from Fidesz’s perpetual gerrymandering and media dominance, the government is also throwing money at pensioners, who make up 30% of the electorate. The Fidesz “regime is not like the old communist regime in 1989 - accepting almost gladly that it’s over: ‘we can hand over the government, so now the ball is yours and do whatever you want. We are done with it’. Orbán is not this kind of guy ... and we also had very different international surroundings in 1989. The US president was called George Bush Senior and the last secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was Mikhail Gorbachev. Now, we have Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin. Both of them, for very different reasons, are greatly interested in keeping Viktor Orbán in power”. Twenty-Four Two is hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen and is a podcast from 242.news - a newsletter focused on the remaking of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    55 min
  7. “Hungary is to the American right what Sweden used to be to the American left”

    JAN 4

    “Hungary is to the American right what Sweden used to be to the American left”

    By mid-April, more than eight million Hungarians will vote in an election whose results will reverberate across Europe and the US. For the first time in 15 years, the conservative Fidesz party and Viktor Orbán – a MAGA icon and standard-bearer for global “illiberalism” – look beatable. Hungary’s fractured opposition has rallied around Péter Magyar, an Orbánworld exile, and is holding a steady double-digit poll lead. Have you been deranged by a decade of Trump? Do you want to tame your unhealthy interest in the Tennessee seventh or Pennsylvania supreme court special elections but keep your head in the liberalism-versus-authoritarianism game? Then, this is the podcast series for you. Dropping every Sunday between now and election night, the Twenty-Four Two Hungary Special will update you on the latest polling and campaign news, and host expert guests covering politics, economics, history and culture. Kim Lane Scheppele is the perfect first guest to provide global context for the election. A Princeton professor and legal expert on democratic backsliding with a hands-on interest in Hungary, Kim was one of the first English-language public intellectuals to warn of Orbán’s stealthy formation of an autocratic “Frankenstate”. “Hungary is to the American right what Sweden used to be to the American left,” she says. “Here’s a little country that does the thing we want to do on a larger scale in the US”. If Orbán loses, she has no doubt he will blame an international conspiracy. “The right will double down and say: ‘you see our enemies are everywhere and we have to circle the wagons’ … If anything, it will have a mobilising effect on the right”. Twenty-Four Two is a new, regular podcast from 242.news, a newsletter devoted to reporting and analysing the remaking of Europe since Russian’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24-2-2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    46 min

  8. 10/23/2025

    "Macron’s approach was to let nature take its course"

    Since President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the national assembly in June 2024, France has been going through its most acute political crisis in more than 50 years. The election that followed split the assembly into three factions - centrist parties previously loyal to the president (“Macronie”), left-wing parties grouped around La France Insoumise (LFI), and Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National (RN) - each accounting for a quarter of the seats. Bouncing between them are the two traditional but shrunken parties of government - the Parti Socialiste (PS) and Les Républicains (LR) - neither of which is large enough to any of the three a majority even if they wanted to. At any other time, this political quagmire would be inconvenient. Today, when France needs difficult decisions made to address chronic budgetary shortfalls and a rising public-debt stock, it’s a crisis. Wally Bordas, Le Figaro’s parliamentary correspondent, has written a gripping account of the 2024-25 political crisis in his new book Palais Bourbier (Quagmire Palace). In it, he reveals why Macron took the reckless decision to dissolve the assembly against the advice of his prime minister. He would either restore his absolute majority or force the RN to govern, fail and lose the 2027 presidential election. “Emmanuel Macron’s approach was to let nature take its course,” says Bordas. “If the voters, by choice, put the RN in power at that time, let them do it”. The Twenty-Four Two podcast is hosted by Tim Gwynn Jones at www.242.news. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    25 min
  9. Interviewer interviewed

    05/19/2025

    Interviewer interviewed

    Today, Caleb Zakarin from the New Books Network foolishly chose me and The Chair as the subject for his inaugural Substack Live interview. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com

    47 min
  • 9 Episodes

About

Talking about Europe's destructive recreation twentyfourtwo.substack.com

Information

You Might Also Like