WASHINGTON — Defeated Brazilian Presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro touched down in Miami, Florida, Wednesday with his family after fleeing his country in the wake of his shocking loss.
Flavio’s arrival comes as President Trump has expressed support for him to take refuge in the US after controversial Vice-President of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil Alexandre de Moraes ordered him to surrender his passport.
“Well, I would approve,” Trump told reporters late Tuesday of Flavio taking refuge in the US. “The election was very strange, and I thought it was terrible.”
“I didn’t take sides. I know them both. I know [Brazilian President Luiz Inácio] Lula [da Silva], I know Flavio a little bit,” the president added. “But I wasn’t involved.”
The Post previously reported that Flavio and his family are expected to receive visas from the State Department. Flavio had departed Brazil with his wife and two daughters.
Trump had been chummy with Flavio’s father, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was defeated by Lula in 2022. Flavio’s brother Eduardo had already been living in the US prior to his arrival.
Flavio, a senator in Brazil, had won the first round of voting in Brazil earlier this month, but the 81-year-old Lula staged a dramatic comeback in the runoffs on Sunday.
The election faced controversy. Both Flavio and Lula had petitioned for a nationwide extension of voting due to concerns about transportation issues causing interruptions.
Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Cristiano Zanin, who previously served as Lula’s attorney, greenlit a national two-hour extension of voting, though there were questions about how evenly that went into effect.
Lula’s victory defied international trends against incumbents and a regional trend of South American countries shifting to the right. His victory was also commanding.
Lula garnered over 64 million votes, while the Bolsonaro scion got fewer than 60 million, marking a roughly 4 percentage point margin of victory.
Flavio hasn’t been charged with anything and has claimed that the investigation into him is political persecution. The probe is believed to revolve around corruption concerns, money laundering, and ties to other scandals that have rocked Brazilian politics.
Moraes, a highly controversial figure on Brazil’s Supreme Court, issued the order to seize his passports in apparent response to Flavio suggesting on a podcast that he’d flee if he lost the election.
The Brazilian Supreme Court judge has been very aggressive in cracking down on right-wing figures, igniting censorship concerns, and is facing his own corruption-related questions.
Lula previously served jail time from 2018 through 2019 over corruption charges, but Brazil’s Supreme Court later annulled it so that he could run for reelection. Jair is serving out a 27-year prison sentence related to a coup attempt after his 2022 defeat.
Trump had been famously chummy with Jair, who was generally considered more pro-America in his foreign policy approach than Lula.
