Aug 13, 2026 · 27 min · 11 segments
Last year, Lithuanian journalist Šarūnas Černiauskas began investigating his prime minister’s finances. What started as a seemingly small story soon grew into a series of scandals. The government…
Šarūnas ČerniauskasGuest
Emma du ChatinierHost
Really, really aggressive, and he, uh, he was summoned to the parliament to answer questions, uh, uh, sent to him and written by the opposition.
And instead of, uh, answering those questions, he spent most of that time launching all kinds of insults at the oppositi- opposition and at us.
These are all the insults we got from the prime minister, the ones with the strikethrough font, and this is the hashtag we used for the story.
Uh, "Let's give it meaning," because the trademark phrase the prime minister had before these stories was, "Well, let's not give this too much meaning."
Whenever, you know, he, uh, has to talk about the, uh, far-right/populist in government along with him, "Well, let's not give this too much meaning." So, uh, whenever there's a scandal going on, when- whenever the government is in a crisis, uh, he's trying to downplay it with this slight catchphrase that actually annoyed the Lithuanian public a lot.
So we decided to turn it around, and our, well, slogan was, "Let's give this meaning," because this is bloody meaningful.
But at this point, how is the public reacting to it? Like was p- his position still sustainable at this point?
Where did he get that money? Why was he doing this or that? People got increasingly infuriated and, uh, in, uh, in July last year, well, pretty much a year ago, we had the first protest against Paluckas and, uh, also against the president because the president also became involved, and he decided to shield the prime minister basically and, well, take the fall for him.
I wasn't intending to, but, uh, I was asked to go on stage and, well, I had to.
Really, really aggressive, and he, uh, he was summoned to the parliament to answer questions, uh, uh, sent to him and written by the opposition.
And instead of, uh, answering those questions, he spent most of that time launching all kinds of insults at the oppositi- opposition and at us.
These are all the insults we got from the prime minister, the ones with the strikethrough font, and this is the hashtag we used for the story.
Uh, "Let's give it meaning," because the trademark phrase the prime minister had before these stories was, "Well, let's not give this too much meaning."
Whenever, you know, he, uh, has to talk about the, uh, far-right/populist in government along with him, "Well, let's not give this too much meaning." So, uh, whenever there's a scandal going on, when- whenever the government is in a crisis, uh, he's trying to downplay it with this slight catchphrase that actually annoyed the Lithuanian public a lot.
So we decided to turn it around, and our, well, slogan was, "Let's give this meaning," because this is bloody meaningful.
But at this point, how is the public reacting to it? Like was p- his position still sustainable at this point?
Where did he get that money? Why was he doing this or that? People got increasingly infuriated and, uh, in, uh, in July last year, well, pretty much a year ago, we had the first protest against Paluckas and, uh, also against the president because the president also became involved, and he decided to shield the prime minister basically and, well, take the fall for him.
I wasn't intending to, but, uh, I was asked to go on stage and, well, I had to.
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