Fact Check: Hungary Won’t Pay $1 Billion for Orbán’s Board of Peace Seat

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s invitation to Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ has sparked immediate controversy at home, after reports claimed Hungary would have to pay $1 billion for a seat. Yet the board’s charter states membership carries no financial obligation by default, with the billion-dollar contribution only offering an automatic extension beyond the standard three-year term.

Attendees walk past a banner reading "woke can't win" as they wait for the start of Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference, in remembrance of late right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona on December 18, 2025.

Bury the Hatchet on Whose Fault ‘Woke’ Is

‘The proof of the slur “woke’s” uselessness is that mass indifference to and aversion toward “woke” policies has done nothing to prevent their enforcement in the first place; therefore, the mass appeal of anti-woke content will likewise do nothing to counter these policies.’

ChatGPT

Imperialism Is the New Isolationism

‘The honest takeaway from the year’s first two to three weeks is this: to the American Empire, everything remains on the table. Yet its interest in the world has never been narrower. The United States is not retreating from the globe, but from those regions that no longer yield dividends. For the same reasons, China and Russia will likely follow suit.’

The Hungarian Holy Kings (Saint Ladislaus, Saint Emeric, and Saint Stephen). Painting from the altar of the church of Szepeshely (Spišská Kapitula, today’s Slovakia), 1478

Saint Emeric, Patron Saint of Hungarian Youth

‘In addition to his role as patron of the country, the prince who died in an unfortunate accident had to wait centuries to find his place among the Hungarian saints, so that his legend could be used to inspire young schoolchildren and promote Catholicism to them.’

Mural reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica painting made from tiles on a wall in the city of Gernika-Lumo, Spain

How Ukraine’s Allies Enlisted the Demons of Spain’s Civil War

‘In the case of Ukraine and Spain, it also produces circumstantial parallels that obscure the unbridgeable gap between the very natures of the two conflicts, conflating the ideological antagonisms of the 1930s at their most nationally internecine with a globalized, technological war for territory. Far from far-sighted, the mantra that Europe should re-learn forgotten lessons or resign itself to perish here becomes dangerously myopic.’

Minnesota Democrats Technically Aren’t Democrats

‘Though it was ultimately forced to merge with the Democratic Party, the Farmer–Labor Party’s legacy lives on today, making the Democratic–Farmer Labor Party often further to the left than the rest of the Democratic Party across the United States.’

An aerial view shows Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, with its colorful houses surrounded by snowy hills on January 13, 2026.

Peace through Transaction: How Trump Can Win Over Greenland

‘Trump…does not need to “take over” Greenland by force or by acquisition. Instead, he should rely on his artful strategy that has thus far been marked by business pragmatism and a preference for power politics—peace through transaction, that is, cutting a deal.’