Front Burner - Brazil stares down Trump and Bolsonaro

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

In a trial entering its final phase, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro stands accused of attempting to stage a coup, leading an armed criminal organisation, and plotting to have the country’s current president and a Supreme Court justice killed. In response Bolsonaro ally U.S. President Donald Trump slapped Brazil with steep 50% tariffs and sanctioned the Supreme Court justice presiding over the case. Will America’s interventions help Bolsonaro and his far-right movement or backfire? And what’s at stake for the future of Brazil as the verdict nears? Gustavo Ribeiro, founder and editor in chief of the Brazilian Report, joins us. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Hi, everyone. I'm Jamie Poisson. So you might remember that back on January 8th, 2023, two years and two days after a pro-Trump mob stormed the capital in Washington. A remarkably similar attack happened in Brazil's capital, Brasilia. Brazil boiling over. It was a week after Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva, the left-wing populace, better known as Lula, had assumed the presidency, after defeating the right-wing populace Zaire Bolsonaro, whose time in power was marked by, among other things, supercharging the deforestation of the Amazon and spreading COVID misinformation.

Bolsonaro's supporters invaded and vandalized the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential palace. These are supporters of Brazil's former president, Jaya Bolsonaro. They still refuse to accept that he lost the election last October. And it was one of the key moments that propelled an investigation of the former president. He is accused of attempting to stage a coup to overturn the election results, leading an armed criminal organization, and plotting to kill Lula and a Supreme Court justice. The sentencing and verdict phase of the trial starts today.

He and seven alleged co-conspirators could face decades in prison. Bolsonaro denies the charges, but meanwhile, he has been getting the support and intervention of a longtime ally. And I believe it's a witch hunt, and it shouldn't be happening. Donald Trump has recently hit Brazil with hefty tariffs, sanctioned the Supreme Court justice leading the investigation, and revoked the visas of several other judges' work. working on the case. But will those interventions help the beleaguered ex-president or hurt him and his movement? And will the outcome of this case push Brazil further into polarization, or is it a chance to chart a new path? My guest today is Gustavo Ribeiro, the founder and editor-in-chief

of the Brazilian report. Gustavo, it's so great to have you back on Frontburner. Thanks for having me. So we had you on the podcast back in 2022, just after Lula had won the first round of elections. But before the final election, where he won by a razor-thin merger. It is one of the most stunning political combats. The former leftist leader who served 18 months in prison for corruption charges later in old, took nearly 51% of the vote.

The far-right incumbent Jao Bolsonaro won 49%. Because they're trying to me interra vivo, and I'm here. Luna says he was resurrected. They wanted to bury me alive, and I'm here. And it's maybe helpful to just briefly understand that even before Bolsonaro lost the election, there were a lot of signs that he might not be willing to accept the results of the election. Yeah, exactly. Actually, you cannot look at this trial just by looking at January 8th, 2023.

We actually have to go back a few years because since Bolsonaro rose to power in 2019, he rose saying that the Brazilian electoral system is not trustworthy. We have an electronic voting system, which has never faced credible fraud allegations. But Bolsonaro consistently said that even the election he won by a landslide in 2018 was stolen because he says he would have won in a first round landslide without the need of a runoff stage if it were not for the fraud. Several, especially U.S. media outlets, say that Bolsonaro took a leaf, a page from Donald Trump's playbook by talking against the electoral system.

Bolsonaro has done that before it was cool, if I can say. So Trump took a page from his playbook, maybe. Maybe, because Bolsonaro has said that. since Brazil introduced electronic voting in the 1990s. Bolsonaro spent the four years that he was in office as president, pitting his supporters against democratic institutions. And actually, like you said, the signs were there for anyone willing to see. We had the Brazilian report wrote in 2021 that several Supreme Court justices,

members of the moderate members of the military, and several congressmen were afraid that Bolsonaro was making moves to eventually try to barricade himself in office. His administration named more military officers than any democratically elected government. And actually, in Brazil, that says a lot, because the military has always, since the 1800s, meddled into politics. Okay, so the foundation was laid. The seeds were planted. And then Lula wins in 2022, and he takes office at the start of January 2023. And a week later on January 8th, Bolsonaro supporters storm the capital of Brasilia calling for a military coup. And as I said in the intro, they invade and vandalize the Supreme Court Congress and the presidential palace. And as I understand it, it was when authorities were invalrys. investigating the January 8th riots in Brasilia that they uncovered what they described as this

much larger coup plot, which they allege was mastermind-minded by Bolsonaro. And so tell me broadly what authorities are alleging Bolsonaro did. What are the plots he is accused of masterminding? So yes, as authorities started investigating, who funded, who incited, and who operationalized the January 8th riots. They uncovered this year-long strategy by Bolsonaro of sowing this trust in Brazilian authorities, of trying to co-opt military officers into supporting his attempt of a coup. The former far-right leader has said the accusations are madness.

Nobody is going to stage a coup with a retired general and half a dozen officers. What they're saying is absurd. They continue to accuse me of a coup. Now, the coup is because there's a draft of state of emergency decree. A coup, using the constitution, have holy patience. Of essentially drafting plans to put Brazilian electoral courts under military intervention to assassinate Lula, his vice president, and the Supreme Court justice, who at the time was the chief electoral justice,

and who is now the man overseen the investigation against Bolsonaro. President Lula broke his two-year silence on the ordeal. The attempt to poison myself and Vice President Alkman didn't work, and we are here. You remember when I was running in the elections, I said that one of my wishes was to bring Brazil back to normality to democratic civility. So it was a very deep conspiracy with different – we have. dozens of defendants. Today's trial is just of the seven people considered to be the masterminds, because there was what they call the intellectual nucleus, which are the eighth defendants

that will stand trial starting today. But we also have the people who brought the money in to finance these operations, the people who conducted the communication strategy on social media, trying to sow this information and essentially firehose public discourse with this sort of conspiracy theory around the electoral system. But yes, this is a sprawling criminal organization according to the Brazilian Federal Prosecution Office. Of course, Bolsonaro is fighting these charges. Just tell me more about what he and his lawyers have said about all of this. Bolsonaro says that he never discussed this, that people who rioted in Brasilia in 2023,

these are crazy people, that he never incited his supporters, and that he never did anything that would be akin to trying to overturn democracy. But the thing is, the investigators found such a wealth of evidence in terms of documents, in terms of messages. Now, this is worrying, I think, because we have top intelligence officers, top military officers, and actually the people occupying the highest offices in the land, essentially discussing this sort of old-fashioned coup out in the open on WhatsApp. It's a fairly insecure platform. That's what I'm saying. Even if we take aside the democracy aspect,

it makes you think about the quality of these top of fish officers. The guy ahead of Bolsonaro's intelligence agency discussing this kind of plans on WhatsApp, it makes you think about the acumen of these people. But then again, there's such a strong body of evidence that what some of the defendants are saying is that, well, we kind of talk about this, but it was never serious. It was just me thinking out loud. And I always like to put my thoughts on paper. But then, like, I shredded them because, of course, we wouldn't do that. Of course, like, this is just us thinking out loud.

It was not a serious plan. It was just like me exploring all possibilities of things that we could do, but never in a serious way. I kid you not. Some ideas up on the whiteboard. Okay. What do legal experts think is likely to happen here? Bolsonaro, I know, could be facing three to four decades in prison. Do most experts think that he will likely be found guilty here?

I don't know anyone walking the earth who doesn't think he will escape this. Both experts and people who don't like Bolsonaro, they say that there's such a strong body of evidence that it's nearly impossible to happen otherwise.

If you like Bolsonaro, you say that this is proof that there is a white conspiracy to remove him from the electoral chessboard, but nobody thinks that he will escape this a conviction and he will get less than 30 years in prison.

It's worth noting, I think, the remarkable turn of events here when you consider that actually Lula, the current president, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2018 as part of this massive corruption case known as Operation Car Wash and his imprisonment kind of paved away for Bolsonaro to win the election that year. And Lula ended up being freed the following year and eventually had his convictions annulled.

And then, of course, went on to win the presidency, but it's really, I don't know, ironic in many ways, hey? There are so many ironies in this case because, for instance, Alexandria de Modais, who is the justice, who is conducting this investigation, he was a sort of nemesis for the left because he was nominated by a hard right president in 2017, a president that's took office after the left was ousted from power in a very controversial impeachment process. So he was someone who was sort of a lightning rod to leftist vitriol. And then once the Bolsonaro administration started and his sort of tough judge persona started to target Bolsonaro, then he became a sort of hero for the left. And, I mean, it is also worth mentioning that this justice, Alexandre DiModainz, he took very severe action, very heterodox actions throughout this past few years. And experts say that, and I mean, two things can be true, that he both was instrumental to saving Brazilian democracy and sometimes was guilty of judicial overreed.

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He is currently on house arrest. He has to wear this ankle monitor. Last week, a judge ordered around-the-clock police surveillance for him after a federal police reported that he had allegedly planned to fleet to Argentina and claim, asylum there ahead of his judgment in this trial. Brazil will stop, they chanted late into the night. These are the supporters of former Brazilian president, Jaya Bolsonaro. They say they'll shut down the country to defend their leaders' innocence after he was placed under house arrest.

But he does have some powerful allies, right, who are trying to change things for him. Back in February, his son, Eduardo, moved to the United States, and he's been lobbying the Trump administration to try to intervene. on his father's behalf and what kind of fruit has that lobbying born? What has Trump been doing? Take me through that. So Trump, since July 9th, has launched this sort of crusade against Brazil. He announced 50% tariffs on most Brazilian exports. This is something that can really deliver a death blow to several Brazilian industries because the U.S. is not only Brazil's second largest trading partner, but also the biggest buyer of Brazilian industrialized goods, the Brazilian

economy, even though we sell a lot of commodities to China, it is very much intertwined to the American economy because we depend on American inputs, so that also hamstrings the government against trying to retaliate because that would stoke inflation in Brazil. And also he, like you said at the beginning of this episode, he has punished personally the justices and law enforcement agents that are involved in the Bolsonaro case. So he has, the Brazilian Supreme Court has 11 justices,

Eight can no longer enter the United States. The other three are seen as provost and other justices. And also Alexandre de Maudez, who is overseeing this investigation, was hit by the Magnitsky Act, which is this sort of financial death to an individual because he can no longer have assets in dollars and no American company or individual can conduct business with him, which means, for instance, he has no longer a MasterCard or Visa.

Given the importance of the U.S. for the financial system, you can imagine how limiting this can be for an individual, right? And I guess I'll just point out here that this is pretty an unusual use of the Magnitsky Act. Usually this is used for terrorists and dictators, stuff like that. People involved with al-Qaeda, with ISIS, and then a Brazilian Supreme Court justice. It doesn't, and this is unusual in every way you can look at it. Because, for instance, Trump has levied terrorists depending on if countries have a trade surplus or a deficit with the U.S. Well, Brazil actually has a deficit with the U.S. sells more than advice from Brazil. I mean, this is unprecedented in any way you can look at it.

Yeah. Just using these legal tools in unusual ways is also sort of a defining characteristic of this administration across the board. Talk to me a little bit more about why Trump is doing what he's doing right now. of course, these two have been buddies for a long time. And this whole saga, we know, might resonate, probably resonates with Trump. There are a lot of similarities here, right? What's in it for him, other than the sense of kinship with Bolsonaro. So I'm not going to try to understand Trump because even Americans sometimes are not able to understand Trump. But what I can say is that Bolsonaro has given Trump a justification to do something that I think he would do regardless because it is important to see that Brazil has done things that have displeased American companies,

especially social media companies. Brazil has tried to have a much more restrictive approach to content moderation online. Brazil already has a very different conception of what freedom of speech is. We look at it in a much more European perspective saying that there are things you cannot say that are criminal speech. So if you post someone a racial slur or homophobic slur, you can go to jail according to Brazilian legislation. So what the Brazilian judiciary has tried to do since last year, year is adopt a much tougher stance on social media companies, which led, for instance,

to acts being suspended in Brazil for more than a month, because Elon Musk's company was continuously disrespecting judicial rulings to strike down accounts or posts that carried criminal content. And then the Supreme Court earlier this year finished a trial and decided to hold social media companies accountable, more accountable for user content. So that is a no-no for big tech in the US. Brazil has also its own instant payment system that has been very detrimental to the credit card industry and that also has been detrimental to META because META wanted to launch WhatsApp pay in Brazil.

Brazil, but because our local system has become so ubiquitous, almost nobody uses WhatsApp A. So you have all these other things that would motivate Trump to be harsh on Brazil already. And then he has an ally who, I mean, is called the Trump of the Tropics and who is being put on trial, which may give the American left ideas of how they could handle Trump if and when Trump leaves office. I mean, the economists just put out a cover saying that Brazil is teaching the U.S. on how to deal with authoritarian leaders. Right.

Yes, because, of course, the big difference here at the moment is that nothing ever really happened to Trump after January 6th. Exactly. And it's looking, yes, increasingly likely that there will be accountability for what happened in Brazil. How is all of this landing with the Brazilian public so far? How has Lula responded to these tariffs and the sanctions? So Lula has tried to capitalize on this rally around the flag effect that, I mean, pretty much every country that has been hit hard by Trump has felt.

I mean, Canada was the same. The president of the United States thinks he can dictate rules over a sovereign country. like Brazil. It's not acceptable for the United States or any country, big or small, to give an unsolicited opinion on our sovereignty. And he has changed his government's model by saying, like, we stand behind the Brazilian people and Brazil belongs to Brazilians. So he has tried to say, well, we don't mess around with other countries' businesses. You shouldn't mess around with which, I mean, is not something that Lula necessarily follows. He has been to Argentina recently, and he has talked about how the judiciary should not

have punished his ally, Christina Kishner. So, I mean, he allows himself to do stuff that he doesn't like Trump doing with Brazil. But regardless, he tries to create this idea that the far right and the Bolsonaro group, They are the ones in cahoots with Trump to undermine Brazilian interests, and we are the ones trying to defend Brazilian industries, Brazilian agribusiness, and Brazilian consumers. and his kind of quest to win the next election? So Lula has experienced a sort of popularity bump, a minor one to the moment, but it's hard to understand how much of it is derived from the Trump issue and how much of it is by the sample fact that food inflation has gone down.

And food inflation is something that really matters for Brazilian voters, because most of the country is of low income, and this is something that really affects people's everyday budget, and governments are punished or rewarded, depending on how this price dynamics flow. So it's still too soon to understand, because we still don't know how this will affect the Brazilian economy. If, like in Canada, you had an election soon after Trump,

took office and started lashing at Canada. So that creates a very immediate rally around the flag effect that can impact the election. Our election is more than a year from now. So it depends on how the economy is going to get to, like, is this going to unravel several sectors of the economy, create unemployment and people will be angry at the government? I mean, we still don't know. I think it's too soon to try to project anything because we have a very polarized system and it's going to be a very close election, I think,

regardless of who wins next year. If Bolsonaro and his allies are convicted here, if he does go to prison, do you think some of that polarization might be pulled back a little bit might abate, or do you think it's likely to increase? I think we'll increase polarization because we have different groups that do not see reality the same way. If we're a pro-Bosona, do you think everything is a conspiracy against him because he was someone who tried to blow up the system that has been a self-serving system for

centuries. And if you don't like Bolsonaro, you simply cannot fathom how people don't see that he really tried to stage a coup. We have disinformation networks who operate 24-7 here in Brazil. I think this will be a very important step for strengthening Brazilian democracy because we have experienced since the 20th century 12 coups or coup attempts. And nobody was ever punished for that. So this would be a first. But I don't see that working in the way of depolarizing the country. Thank you so much, Kosovo.

It's a pleasure. My pleasure. All right. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.