Pressman officially announced his departure during a press event on Tuesday, as reported by Magyar Nemzet. The news was also confirmed in a newsletter issued by the US Embassy in Budapest on Wednesday.

The announcement comes as no surprise, given the highly partisan nature of David Pressman’s appointment. 

Remarks of Ambassador David Pressman at a Reception in Honor of Civil Society, Independent Media and Marking the Conclusion of Ambassador Pressman’s Tenure in Hungary, Featuring a Tribute by American Musical Icon James Taylor.

“You’ve Got A Friend” 

Excellencies, distinguished guests, friends, and most importantly to our guests of honor this evening, representatives of Hungary’s civil society and independent media: welcome.   

As you know, my family and I will be departing Budapest in mid-January.  And there are a lot of goodbyes that come with leaving a place that has become our home.  But some of the hardest goodbyes will be to those of you gathered here tonight who work so hard to advance freedom and human dignity in this country.  And that’s why at this farewell reception, I wanted to make tonight not about me, but about a tribute to you. 

Tonight is a celebration of voices – and those who use them to create extraordinary beauty and power.  But before we celebrate voices in the form of song, I’d like to address what happens in their absence – silence.   

We meet tonight at a time of enormous change and significant challenges in the world.  A bloody war continues to rage across the border – presenting one of the most serious threats to Europe’s security since World War II; a war that is forcing difficult conversations about what we stand for; a war that is challenging our understanding of what sovereignty, freedom, and democracy mean and what defending them looks like. 

Russia’s invasion of its democratic neighbor Ukraine is not the only battleground where democracy is being tested today.  Attacks on democracy don’t only come in the form of Kalashnikovs and Kinzhal missiles.  Democratic values – here and around the world – are also under attack.  

The Prime Minister likes to think of “the war” as playing out next door; but the frontline of democracy is also right here, and it is in retreat.   

We gather tonight in a country whose people once stood up to the Soviets with bravery that inspired the world.  This is an extraordinary country, and it is also a country where democracy is challenged by kleptocracy, where the rule of law increasingly feels subordinate to rule by propaganda.  

The reason Hungary continues to be ranked the most corrupt country in Europe and trails its peers economically has little to do with Brussels or George Soros or marauding outside forces.  It has everything to do with public corruption and the attacks on Hungary’s democratic institutions.   

This is reflected in the foreign partners the Hungarian government chooses to court.  We see it in Hungary’s deepening relationship with Russia as it continues its brutal andunprovoked war in Ukraine.  We see it in its eagerness to make secret deals with Beijing that enrich an inner circle with questionable benefits and often enormous, long-term costs for the Hungarian people.

 We see it in unjustifiable economic overtures even to the likes of Iran as it fuels instability and war in the Middle East.   

Whether in the context of Ukraine or Hungary or anywhere else where democracy is under attack, how each of us respond matters.  While I have the great privilege of speaking on behalf of the United States of America, and have always believed in the power and goodness of America, it is not the voice of governments and government officials alone who will write the next chapter.  It will be you.  

The people in this room.  This extraordinary group of advocates and activists; artists and builders; dreamers and doers.  People who push forward and speak up.  People who criticize and create.  People who engage and encourage, even when it’ss hard, especially when it’s hard.  People who speak louder even when the loudest voices, backed by millions of Euros, billions of forints of public money, are propagating messages designed to portray you as a criminal, a spy, a fool, or even a pedophile.  

I know that in moments like these there may be an impulse to relent.  To find the price of engaging in this arena too high.  The shamefulness of the smears too much to bear.  I understand that.  But the alternative to your voices is silence.   

Hungarians know the path of silence is perilous because you have walked it before.  Under communism, the government offered a deal – the so-called “Kádár Compromise” – keep your head down and your mouth shut and, in return, enjoy a life of moderate comfort.  It may not have been a very good deal.  But it was the only one available.  

The Kádár Compromise is, alas, not a mere historical relic.  Today, here and elsewhere, engaged citizens committed to freedom and democracy face a similar choice about what role we – each of us – will play.  What lives we will lead.   

I have been privileged to serve as a senior official of the United States Government under multiple Presidents, and have seen up close the prerogatives that come with power.  The choice of comfort is always available – to enjoy the privileges of office without achieving its purpose, to bask in the spotlight of the arena while avoiding the fight.   

Every day, each of us gets to accept or reject the modern Kádár Compromise; to engage or withdraw; to resist or acquiesce; to believe in what can be or resign that it will not be.   
 

A late friend of mine – the extraordinary Republican leader – Senator John McCain – often quoted President Teddy Roosevelt in his address about “the man in the arena”:  “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood… who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”  

For Senator McCain, he often thought of the person in the arena as a brave politician.  For my part, I think of each of you – Hungarian patriots, armed not with powers of state, but with a sense of right and wrong and a determination to shape your future.  

Those who refuse to bow to the onslaught of a government media machine engineered to defame, to discredit, to disgrace, and – ultimately – to silence.  Silencing these people – less than forty years after their compatriots emerged from the darkness of communism and rejected the Kádár Compromise – would be a tragedy not only for Hungary, but for all free people everywhere.

The President of the United States asked me to come here because he and I, like you, believe Hungary matters.  And because for too long we have looked the other way as your country veered from the path of its democratic allies.  Whatever it was that the United States and our Allies had done in the past to try to prevent this change in direction, it didn’t work.   

And so, we have approached this relationship differently, drawing on different tools than in the past, including speaking candidly and clearly about what is happening in this country and to our relationship with it.  I hope if America is to continue to lead in the way it has for the past two and half centuries, those privileged enough to represent it will continue to speak up on behalf of freedom and democracy and human rights in the places where it matters most – in places like this.   

Those leaders can take inspiration from the people gathered in this room.  Patriots who do not have titles or offices or security, but who love their country and every day choose to enter the arena to fight to preserve its freedoms.  People who, simply put, will not be silent.  Because as you have learned, and as I have learned from you:  no good will come to your country from a compromise with your conscience.   

My predecessor brought Paul Anka to Budapest to sing a Sinatra ode to your Prime Minister about “his way.”  I have just told you about my way.  And so, I thought it best to bring someone over to sing to those equipped not with the power of state but with the power of conviction; those obsessed not with the accumulation of power but the promotion of principles; not with an adherence to political party but with a commitment to democracy; those working not to rule Hungary but to secure its democratic future.  

There is no one I could imagine better to respond to this moment when silence looms than my friend, James Taylor.  James Taylor’s music has been the soundtrack of so many American lives.  

Between Grammys, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honors, my country has rightly recognized him as among our most gifted artists.  In his simple and beautiful voice, James Taylor – for me – has always been about the individual, not the powerful.  Over the past decades, his songs of love, loss, and hope have been a source of comfort and inspiration to generations of Americans.   

James will be joined on stage by my dear friend who is herself an accomplished musician, and so much more, and who also happens to be married to James, the extraordinary Kim Taylor, alongside their gifted son and talented musician in his own right, Henry.  And they are accompanied by virtuoso cellist Owen Young of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who himself conducted a master class this morning with a new generation of Hungarian musicians at Budapest’s own Liszt Conservatory. 

The Taylors flew to Europe to play for you, representatives of Hungary’s civil society and independent media.  He is here today to sing, not to politicians but to patriots, not in a concert hall or stadium but in that arena I spoke of, to those working every day – at great personal cost and risk – to advance what is right and what is just and what keeps Hungary free.   

I often have said the United States will always march alongside those who march for what is right and what is just.  History is long, as Hungarians know, it ebbs and flows.  And I’m confident, in the end, inspired by your bravery, we’ll get there together. 

So thank you.  Thank you for your friendship.  Thank you for your service to your country and the U.S. – Hungary relationship.  The United States, and its Ambassador, is honored by your presence. Thank you very much. 

Source: 
U.S. Embassy Budapest