The Daily - A Jan. 6 Moment for Brazil

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

After Jair Bolsonaro lost October’s Brazilian presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, many believed that the threat of violence from the defeated leader’s supporters would recede. They were wrong. Mr. Bolsonaro had spent years sewing doubt and undermining Brazil’s election system, and last week, thousands of rioters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices. What happened — and how did Brazil get here?Guest: Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: What drove a mass attack on Brazil’s capital? Mass delusion.The riots in Brazil had echoes of Jan. 6 in the United States. The comparison is inevitable and useful but here are some major differences. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In Brazil, many believed that once former President Jair Bolsonaro had left office, the threat of violence from his supporters would recede. They were wrong. Today, my colleague Jack Nickus on the storming of Brazil's capital. It's Wednesday, January 11th. Jack, what was your reaction when you realized that this attack was underway in Brasilia? I think there was a sense of, here we go, because I had been, as sad as it sounds, been waiting for this for a long time.

for this for a long time. I have been reporting on the anger and the delusion of the right-wing movement here in Brazil for nearly a year and a half. And we had been fearful that something like this was going to happen. And then suddenly, as I watched this live stream on my computer from my home in Rio, it was unfolding real quickly. Right. It's kind of like knowing that something you feared would happen and being right in the worst possible way. I mean, you had come on the show a couple months ago and explained this fear of yours, that violence was in the air around the last Brazilian presidential election. So just remind us why you were so worried that something like this was about to happen. Sure. So the election pitted Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent president, a very much a Trump-like figure against Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president challenging Bolsonaro to return

for a third term. And it was an extremely divisive election. People from Lula's side calling Bolsonaro genocidal, people from Bolsonaro's side calling Lula a criminal who must be stopped. But most importantly, you know, for me, what really worried me was Bolsonaro, for more than a year, had basically been suggesting that he might not accept the results. And he had, for actually years, been systematically undermining the electorate's confidence in the election systems. So Brazil is actually the only country in the world to use a fully digital voting system with no paper backups. And Bolsonaro has seized on that as essentially to him enough evidence that it can't be trusted. That it's a black box and that everything can be hacked, there's no paper backups. And he has used a number of misleading statements,

conspiracy theories, and in some cases, just downright falsehoods to spread what is essentially the lie that the election system is rife with fraud. He actually has had a quote that he has said is, you say that I can't prove there was fraud, but you can't prove there wasn't. He was always seeding a little bit of doubt and leaving himself a window to potentially try to exploit in the case that he lost. So all of that, of course, is concerning when it's coming from the president of the nation.

But to me, what was far more concerning was the fact that it worked. We could see clearly in national polls that three out of four of his supporters had little to no faith in the election systems. Wow. And so as the election approached and polls continued to show Bolsonaro behind, I was really worried about what the reaction would be from his supporters if he ultimately lost. Right. And then of course, right after we spoke with you last time, Jack, Bolsonaro does lose. Correct. And when that happens, we're sort of bracing for what comes next. And at first, he remained completely silent. And in that sort of vacuum, his supporters began going to the streets.

And so after two really tense days, Bolsonaro finally announces he has a speech. The nation is watching. It's this big, enormous national live TV moment. And he walks to the podium and gives this short and rather millymouth speech. I want to start by thanking the 58 million Brazilians who voted for me on October 30th. in which he touts his record and then says that he supported peaceful protests, but notes that they are inspired by, quote, feelings of injustice in the electoral process.

Hmm. And then he walks off, and everybody's sort of like, is he conceding or not? And then his chief of staff comes to the lectern. And says, the president has authorized me to transition power. Interesting. is the president has authorized me to transition power. Interesting. So in some sense, we breathe a sigh of relief because it means there's not going to be an attempt to hold on to power.

But his sort of half-concession did very little to tamp down the protests. And in fact, the next day, they only grew. Bolsonaro supporters have taken advantage of a national holiday here in Brazil to hold protests outside army barracks in nine states across Brazil. It seems they've heeded the call by the president to hold peaceful protests. The protests move to these enormous demonstrations outside military bases around the nation. And... I want the military to take power.

It's not ideal, but it's a million times better than Lula's Communist Party. Basically, these people are demanding the military intervene in the government, take control and keep Bolsonaro in power, or at least block Lula from taking power. Put simply, they want a military coup. An astonishing sight in a country that 40 years ago brought an end to a repressive military dictatorship. And this was a really concerning moment for the country because you have to remember that Brazil suffered through a military dictatorship from 1964 just to 1985. Not that long ago. And you now had thousands of people calling for the military to intervene and take control.

And for a lot of Brazilians, that was scary. But at the same time, nothing really came of it. Everyone in government was accepting Lula's victory. The government was transitioning. And actually, these Bolsonaro supporters outside the military bases, they almost became a sort of meme on the left in Brazil. There was memes of them stuck in the rain. There was viral videos about them trying to use their cell phones to summon aliens to come help.

And they almost became a little bit of a laughingstock on the left in Brazil, framed as losers who didn't get their way. And I think that was in part because the military was making no signs that it was going to comply with these demands. In the meantime, Bolsonaro wasn't really making any public statements. And we get to the end of the year, and these are the final days of his presidency. And suddenly he announces he's got an address to the nation. And this turns out it's kind of his farewell address as president. I sought, within the four lines, within the laws,

respecting the condition, a way out for that. He says that he had tried within the laws of Brazil to overturn the election, but he failed. Showing that we are different on the other side. And he essentially suggested that his supporters should give up. Because we either live in a democracy or we don't. He said, we either live in a democracy or we don't. And no one wants an adventure. And then he boarded a government plane for Florida.

It seems like he's going to stay there for the next few months. So on December 31st, I fly to Brasilia in order to attend Lula's inauguration on New Year's Day. And on New Year's Eve, I know this is really the final day before Lula's set to take office. This is something that the protesters are bent on preventing. And so I kind of want to go visit them and understand what they're thinking in this moment on the eve of this thing that they have been so worried about. Right. And so I head to the army headquarters, which has really been the epicenter of these protests. It's a sort of tent city.

There's a lot of camping tents that people are sleeping in, but then there's these larger structured tents. And I was really struck by the scale of it, because I had been at this very encampment in the days after the election, you know, sort of on the days when it was just being set up. And I had expected in some ways that over the past two months, as really the rest of Brazil had moved on, that maybe this would be a smaller version of it. But in fact, it had grown only bigger. There was a shower station, a place to charge your phones. There was even a hospital. There was a church and 28 different food stalls scattered around in order to eat. And it was organized and people really kind of had a mission.

Some people were serving food, others were sort of intelligence, looking out for infiltrators from the left. Everyone I spoke to was finding a purpose in this movement. So as I'm talking to different supporters, I then come upon this kind of older guy speaking over PA system. And in his speech, he was talking about the inauguration and the following day, and he was saying things like how their movement had this force that was armed and ready to defend Brazil's democracy. And so after he finishes speaking, I go up and introduce myself.

Magno 040. Magno Rodrigues and Magno 040. Magno 040 is my codename here. His name is Magno Rodrigues. He's 60 years old. Are you now retired? His name is Nagnol Rodriguez. He's 60 years old. He tells me he's on disability. He's walking with a cane. You know, at some point, he pulls up his shirt and shows me this really gnarly scar down his spine. He said that he had done multiple jobs over his career.

You know, he was a janitor, he was a mechanic, he was a driver. He told me at some point he was an investigative journalist. And he had become a sort of leader in the camp in some ways. And just about everyone seemed to know him, constantly coming up and asking him for directions or where something was. And then we start to get into why he was there. What should happen in your mind? What we want is that our country doesn't receive a communist government. He is really worried that Lula is going to turn Brazil into a communist nation. And pretty quickly, he starts to repeat one of the major conspiracy theories

that Bolsonaro had peddled for so long. Which is that the voting machines are run by these mysterious algorithms that actually control the results of the election. You know, these sort of political elites and the courts are really controlling the strings of power to ensure that Lula got into office, that they had really rigged the vote. And as I'm talking to him, I can tell he is deeply convinced of this. He's really earnest about it. And he's really committed to do something to stop Lula. And, of course, you know, we're now just hours away from the inauguration. And so I ask him, I mean, what's going to happen?

There's no signs that anything is going to stop Lula. And he tells me that he's convinced that at the last minute, as Lula is about to take office, the military will swoop in and stop him. Mm-hmm. And I was kind of stunned with his commitment and how entrenched he was. I asked him, I said,

if Lula is inaugurated tomorrow, I mean, what's your plans? How long are you willing to stay here? And he told me, basically, for the rest of his life. Wow. And Jack, just to orient us, how far are the people in this tent city from the seat of power in Brasilia? And so the next day, I go to the inauguration. I watch Lula take the presidential sash and give a big speech, talks about unifying the country. And he's president.

And so that means that for many of these protesters like Magno, this vision that they had of the military swooping in or Bolsonaro flying back to triumphantly retake power did not happen and wasn't going to happen. And so it dawned on these protesters that if anyone was going to do something about this, it was going to be them. We'll be right back. So Jack, what do we know so far about this moment where protesters storm the Capitol? So we're still figuring a lot out. figuring a lot out. But what we know is that in the days leading up to the protests, there were calls put out on social media for a mass demonstration in the center of Brazil's capital of Brasilia. And so on Sunday, people from around Brasilia, including from the camp that I visited, and many other camps around the nation arrived in Brasilia, some of them on foot, some by car.

And we also know that there were at least 100 buses carrying at least 4,000 people into the capital. And by early afternoon of Sunday, we had thousands of people amassing on what is essentially the National Mall of Brazil, which leads directly to the three most important government buildings, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential offices. And these are actually symbols of Brazilian power and of Brasilia. These are these modernist architectural gems that were opened in 1960 and that are really unusual government buildings. And this was a Sunday. So the good thing was these buildings were largely vacant. And yet security forces were supposed to be in place, according to authorities. But nevertheless, we saw very quickly these large crowds, you know, draped in the yellow of the national soccer team, streaming up a ramp onto the roof of Congress.

And then just moments later, another group was down below, pushing their way inside of Congress. And they seemed to gain pretty easy entry, breaking their way in. At the same time, there was a separate group splintered off that went to the left, that broke into the presidential offices, and then another group that went to the right and broke into the Supreme Court. One of the videos I watched was this protester as he pushed his way into Congress saying, This is our Congress. We're in power now.

We're in power now. And it was a moment where you realize that these protesters who had been pushed aside and not really thought about suddenly were in control of the three most important buildings in the Brazilian government. And they were destroying them. Stunning. They destroyed computers, they broke glass, threw furniture out of windows, stole documents, ripped priceless art out of their frames. And in some reports in the presidential offices, they urinated in some rooms. Wow. So eventually, the armed forces arrived.

The same soldiers that these protesters were calling on to come take control of the government were now arriving to take control of these protesters. to come take control of the government, were now arriving to take control of these protesters. And after several hours, they were able to retake control of the scene. So Jack, what did you do once this attack was over? Well, the next morning, I head back to the encampment at the army headquarters because I knew that many of the people there had to have been part of this riot on Sunday. And today it is covered in soldiers, basically.

So a little frustrating for me not to be able to get close, but we're going to try to find another way in. And early on Monday morning, the authorities swept through the encampment and actually detained 1,200 of the people that were staying there and ferried them away in buses for further questioning. Now, at the beginning, it was really difficult to get close. There was army soldiers everywhere. They were turning me away. But eventually, I was able to figure out a way to get inside. And there were still some stragglers, still some protesters who were filing out with belongings. Then, to my surprise, I spotted Magno. Hmm. And it was this confused situation.

It was unclear why he had not been detained. He was carrying some scattered belongings. His wife was not with him. He was with this other friend. We got to talking and Magno told me that, yes, he had been there and he had participated in the invasion of some of these buildings. And he openly admitted that he went into Congress.

And what did he say he did once he was inside? He basically said that he was only there to get other people out, that he was there to stop the destruction. And then he went on to tell me that he was certain that any of the real violence and destruction was actually carried out by people on the left who were disguised as Bolsonaro supporters. And this was a claim that was repeated by many other protesters who I spoke to on Monday morning at this encampment. None of them with any evidence. And in fact, all of them admitting they were just going off their gut. And at this point, there's really no evidence that that is the case. So now, as many of his other campmates have been detained,

he is taking advantage of this confused moment in which there are army soldiers all over the place, but no one really seems to be paying attention or caring, and he just starts heading across this big field towards the parking lot where his car has been parked. And eventually his wife is with him and at his car, he starts to pack it up and get in. And basically he's escaping police. That's right.

I mean, this is a guy who admitted to just invading Congress the day before now getting out of there. the day before, now getting out of there. So as he's about to leave, I ask him if I can get in. And he waffles and then reluctantly agrees. And so... Okay, obrigado. I'm going to get in the car with him. Vamos.

My interpreter Gustavo and I jump in the back and we head out with him. And as we're driving out, he immediately starts talking about he's got a plan, a strategy to escape. They're taking off their yellow shirts. Pulls off his shirt and he tells his friend in the back to take off his shirt as well because they're both wearing these yellow national soccer jerseys that he worries will identify them as protesters. And then we're driving along

and it seems like we're heading to his house. I'm asking him more questions to try to understand what had happened and what his plans are. I overhear his wife tell him that your friends are nice, but they're asking too many questions. And it seems to dawn on him that maybe as he makes his escape, it's not a great idea to have a reporter in the backseat. Generally true. Okay, obrigado. Buona sorte.

So eventually he pulls over at this bus station and kicks me out and tells me he'll call me and speeds off. That's a ride, man. So as wild as that scene you just described is, Jack, this moment where Magno dumps you off at the side of the road and completes his escape, it seems to hint at something very important, which is that this is now a giant crime scene, right? And that Brazil is about to

experience what we just went through here in the U.S. after January 6th, which is a long and complicated quest for accountability and an effort to understand how an attack of this scale happened and who should be held responsible for it. held responsible for it. That's absolutely right. So Brazil is now starting what will likely be a long and drawn out investigation and prosecution of the potentially upwards of thousands of people who partook in this invasion. President Lula has been very forceful in the days following the riots, saying there will be prosecutions. The authorities have detained 1,500 people within 24 hours of the invasions and said that they will be held until the investigation is concluded. And Congress seems poised to be opening a formal congressional investigation. And, you know, there's talks now about not just holding the people who invaded the

buildings accountable, but also holding the people who helped fund the buses and the encampments to also look at the people who maybe were pulling the strings or organizing or pushing many of these people in the direction of this attempt to what could be described as an attempted coup. And of course, the person who looms over all of this is Jair Bolsonaro, just as Donald Trump did over January 6th in the US. That's right. We know that the false belief that the election was stolen

stems directly from the years of efforts by Bolsonaro to sow doubt in Brazilian election systems. Not only did he spread the lie that the election systems was right for the fraud, but he also instilled deep fear in his supporters that the left was bent on rigging the vote. But I think the case of Bolsonaro is even more complicated than the case of Trump. And that's because, well, we all know that in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Donald Trump was adamant that the vote was stolen and he fought to overturn the election. And on January 6th, as the vote was about to be certified, he stood down on the National Mall and directed his supporters to march to the Capitol.

Jair Bolsonaro did not do that. When he lost the vote, he authorized a transition of power. He kind of went into hiding. And then on the day of the invasion, he was thousands of miles away in Florida and just days earlier had suggested to his supporters to move on. So his culpability is just different, you're saying? Absolutely. And I think what happened in Brazil on Sunday is actually scarier than January 6th. Explain that. Well, Bolsonaro had essentially told his supporters to move on

and Bolsonaro himself had given up, but it didn't matter. His supporters were already moving forward without him. They had become so convinced in part from his own rhetoric and also in part from just the sea of misinformation online that they didn't need him anymore. The movement had become almost its own self-animating beast from just the sea of misinformation online, that they didn't need him anymore. You know, the movement had become almost its own self-animating beast that was going to push

forward towards the Capitol with or without him. And I think that was also in part because of what I found at the encampment with people like Magno. It's in some ways not only about politics. I gathered that there was a sense of identity that a lot of these people found in the movement. They found purpose in it. And I think that's really powerful and strong. And it means that when a politician tells you that, sorry, the fight is over, it's not so easy to just for them to walk away. They were part of something larger than themselves. They were part of something larger than themselves. Right. I mean, this is an untested proposition in the U.S. because Donald Trump has never asked the millions of people

who believe his election was stolen to move on. But you're saying in Brazil, we've learned that there comes a point where even if the leader of a movement like this wants people to move on, wants it to come to an end, they can't make that happen. And that is scary. That's right. In Brazil, this is really not that much about Bolsonaro anymore. It's about a mass delusion.

It's about a large portion of the population believing that the country is heading for destruction and that they're the ones that must save it. Well, Jack, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. California has issued evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents as relentless rains raised fears of flooding and mudslides. The rain has already killed at least 17 people

and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage. And two Democratic congressmen from New York have asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate their Republican colleague, Representative George Santos, who has admitted to lying to voters about much of his past. On Tuesday morning, the lawmakers, Daniel Goldman and Richie Torres, hand-delivered the request to Santos' office. Congressman, you're doing this in person? We are. What's the value of doing this in person?

The process requires us to deliver it in person. Goldman and Torres asked the committee to explore whether Santos broke the law when he filed financial disclosure forms that were late and omitted key details about his business. Why is it important to do? I think when you violate House ethics, you should be held accountable. Today's episode was produced by Claire Tennesketter and Rob Zipko with help from Asta Chaturvedi. It was edited by Lisa Chow,

fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Rowan Emisto and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landferk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Gustavo Freitas and Yvonne Fara. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.