Latin America

Andre Pagliarini
/
March 19, 2025
Coup Plea

Brazil’s Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of embattled former President Jair, announced he’s taking a leave from Congress to press his father’s case full-time to MAGA allies in the United States.



Donald Trump Jr. and Eduardo Bolsonaro at Mar-a-Lago on election night in 2024

MAGA Americans weren’t the only ones pinning their hopes on Donald Trump’s election last year. Leading right-wing reactionaries around the world believed that his return to power would buoy their own fortunes, as well—and perhaps none felt this as strongly as Brazil’s Bolsonaro family. After Trump’s victory, Jair Bolsonaro, the embattled former president, hailed “the triumph of the people’s will over the arrogant designs of an elite who disdain our values, beliefs, and traditions,” adding that “its impact will resonate across the globe … empowering the rise of the right and conservative movements in countless other nations.” But with Bolsonaro in deep legal trouble and deemed a flight risk by the authorities, it was his son Eduardo who got a front-row seat to that “triumph”: The Brazilian congressman was at Mar-a-Lago on election night, celebrating with the Trump family.

It’s no secret what Eduardo wants from Trump. His father, whose 2018 election stunned the political establishment, is barred from seeking any elected office until 2030 for using government channels to sow distrust in the country’s voting system. Worse, he could soon be facing a lengthy prison sentence for his role in plotting a conspiracy to violently overrule the results of the 2022 election, which he lost to the left-wing elder statesman Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Increasingly desperate as the walls close in, Bolsonaro and his allies haven’t been subtle: They want Trump to directly intercede on their behalf. The day after Trump’s election, Eduardo tweeted a list of grievances that his dad and Trump share (“defamed,” “attempted assassination,” “indicted”) and concluded: “2024: Trump elected. 2026: Bolsonaro (loading…).”

Trump’s personal involvement is unlikely but hardly impossible. He has been friendly with Bolsonaro, but has said almost nothing about Brazil since taking office. Now, however, the former president’s 40-year-old son is taking a big step to try to rekindle the bond between his father and Trump. On Tuesday, Eduardo stunned his supporters and Brazilian political observers by announcing that he’s taking an indefinite unpaid leave from office to remain in the United States, where he’s been since late February, to plead his dad’s case full-time. He is well positioned to make such entreaties. Since his father’s election, Eduardo has become a fixture of the MAGA political-industrial complex. He has appeared regularly at CPAC, spoken several times with Tucker Carlson, cavorted with Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell, and hobnobbed at Mar-a-Lago—including with Trump himself. All along, he has spread self-serving fictions about Brazil’s political situation to an uninformed MAGA base.

There is a real affinity for the Trumps among the Bolsonaros, but the stakes of Eduardo’s efforts are not just personal. A week after Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters staged a riot in Brasília, the Brazilian capital, a destructive green-and-yellow reprise of the January 6, 2021, insurrection carried out by Trump die-hards. Authorities acted swiftly, arresting almost 1,500 people on the spot. Bolsonaro and his allies have since decried the unflinching institutional response as authoritarian. They insist that Brazil is no longer a democracy and that Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who has boldly confronted myriad extremist threats to the constitutional order, is a tyrant. (Moraes also faced down Elon Musk last year, forcing X to comply with Brazilian laws. In response, Musk called him “an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge.”) Eduardo is hoping to leverage hostility toward Moraes in Brazil and beyond, including among influential MAGA figures, to absolve his father. He is, in short, actively soliciting foreign interference in his country’s internal affairs.

More:
https://newrepublic.com/article/192895/eduardo-bolsonaro-trump-interfere-brazil