Greenwald Unpacks Brazil’s Political Drama As Bolsonaro Deletes “True President-Elect” Claim

Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro briefly declared himself “the true president-elect of Brazil” on Wednesday before deleting the statement. 

President Trump said the same day that he would not endorse Bolsonaro’s claim, suggesting the Trump administration would limit its support for Bolsonaro’s election challenge. 

Bolsonaro arrived in Miami on Wednesday after leaving Brazil earlier in the week, citing the “politicization of the justice system in Brazil” under left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. His abrupt departure followed a Supreme Court order requiring him to surrender his passport immediately after the runoff election. 

Argentina’s migration department said Bolsonaro and his family entered Misiones province through a border crossing late Tuesday night using valid travel documents. They immediately boarded a private jet bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador, then flew directly to Miami. 

Journalist Glenn Greenwald added more color to Bolsonaro’s now-deleted statement: 

It seems as Flavio Bolsonaro and his allies just deleted that statement in which Flavio declared himself “the true president-elect of Brazil,” and then re-posted the letter without that declaration.

I had just spent 30 minutes speaking to everyone I could trying to understand how it made any sense at all to make this claim — either in general or the way they did it: so impulsively and suddenly, with no groundwork laid for it — and nobody could make sense of it. So it seems wise that they removed it.

Greenwald posted a clip of Trump that makes it clear he does not intend to back Bolsonaro’s now-deleted claim. 

Greenwald continued: 

Brazil’s Federal Police issues a statement that Flavio Bolsonaro is not considered a “fugitive” from justice because he has not been charged with any crimes and there was no order issued for his arrest when he left Brazil for the US. 

Part of the motive here is to explain away the embarrassment that Brazilian authorities had no idea what was going on in their country all day, but it is also true that — contrary to many prevailing media and political narratives in the US — Flavio has not been charged with (let alone convicted of) crimes and no arrest order had yet been issued when he left.

To sum up: Bolsonaro has reached Miami to circumnavigate Lula’s totalitarian crackdown, but his political endgame remains unclear. 

His claim to the presidency quickly disappeared off the internet yesterday, and Trump declined to endorse it. Meanwhile, Brazil’s own Federal Police undercut the whole fugitive narrative. The battle over legitimacy, judicial power, and Brazil’s political future is far from over, as Lula’s socialist regime will face immense headwinds in a Senate that has shifted right.