It was a big day for 63-year-old István Pálffy. The former television presenter was to return to the small screen after 13 years. In that over-a-decade-long period, he had briefly served as an MP in the Hungarian National Assembly, and even as an Ambassador to Ireland in Dublin.

However, his true craft has always been television, and he was given the chance to become an on-screen TV personality again, on the Hungarian right-wing cable channel Hír TV. That chance was promptly revoked after just a day.

The Incident

As the new host of the programme Napi Aktuális (Daily Topical), he was conducting an interview with opposition politician Péter Márki-Zay, the Mayor of Hódmezővásárhely and the candidate of the United for Hungary coalition of opposition parties in the 2022 Hungarian election.

The discussion was going along swimmingly as expected, discussing Márki-Zay’s newly founded political party, until about four and half minutes into it.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, Pálffy made the claim that ‘we should demonstrate certain patience towards an illness like that of paedophiles’.

Strangely, nothing preceded this remark by Pálffy that would have put it in a logical context, it was a complete non-sequitur. Leading up to it, Márki-Zay was talking about speaking up against the alleged mistreatment of Hungarian opposition MP Ákos Hadházy, despite purportedly not agreeing with him; and about his town, Hódmezővásárhely, allegedly not receiving its funds from the government’s utility costs reduction programme. Neither topic has anything to do with paedophiles.

Márki-Zay, too, was taken aback by what had just been said, and immediately repudiated the sentiment, insisting that those who prey on children do not deserve any patience or sympathy. This opinion is shared by the vast majority of society in Europe and in the United States.

Some of the rare exceptions who do have sympathy for paedophiles would be a subset of LGBT activists online, who had their ‘hub’ on X before the Elon Musk takeover. They have been pushing to include so-called ‘minor-attracted people’, or ‘MAPs’ for short, among the LGBTQ+ minorities. While their cause has so far been ignored even by mainstream LGBT activists, they have now found themselves an unlikely ally in a now-unemployed Hungarian news anchor.

Hír TV has released a public statement, denouncing Pálffy’s statements made on their air and distancing themselves from it.

Why Did He Do It?

Many are scrambling to make sense of this curious incident. An unusual theory is that Pálffy may have been actually setting a trap for Márki-Zay,

trying to get him to agree with his statement about child abusers,

and thus hurt his re-election chances in next year’s municipal election in Hódmezővásárhely.

As far-fetched as it may sound at first, if anyone, Márki-Zay could have fallen for it, as he’s known to have a habit of putting his foot in his mouth. During last year’s election cycle, he infamously boasted about the diversity of his coalition, claiming that it includes everyone ‘from communists to fascists.’ He also suggested that Hungarian citizens should fly to India for eye surgeries as part of his health care plan—a plan that also seemingly included closing obstetrical clinics, as he once told the audience at a town hall that you don’t need doctors to assist child births, because it is not an illness. (Mind you, his wife happens to be a midwife.)

Still, it is a dubious explanation, as this would have been a ‘kamikaze attack’ from Pálffy, sinking his own career along with Márki-Zay’s. Anyhow, if that in fact was the plan, Pálffy deserves credit for successfully executing the career suicide part.