Trump Endorses Bolsonaro for Reelection Minutes After Brazilian Senators Call for His Prosecution Over Pandemic Response

Josh FeldmanOct 26th, 2021, 8:28 pm
 
Donald Trump

Joshua Roberts / Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump put out a statement endorsing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for reelection — minutes after a Brazil senate panel recommended Bolsonaro be criminally charged for his failed pandemic response.

Trump put out a statement Tuesday night touting Bolsonaro as a “great friend.”

“He fights hard for, and loves, the people of Brazil,” Trump said. “Just like I do for the people of the United States. Brazil is lucky to have a man such as Jair Bolsonaro working for them.”

“He is a great President and will never let the people of his great country down!” he added.

Several minutes before his endorsement dropped, news broke that a Brazilian Senate panel voted 7-4 to recommend Bolsonaro be criminally charged for, as the AP reported, “charlatanism and inciting crime… misuse of public funds and crimes against humanity.”

The New York Times recently reported that lawmakers put together a report recommending charges against Bolsonaro for taking more serious action to mitigate covid-19.

The extraordinary accusations appear in a nearly 1,200-page report that effectively blames Mr. Bolsonaro’s policies for the deaths of more than 300,000 Brazilians, half of the nation’s coronavirus death toll, and urges the Brazilian authorities to imprison the president, according to the excerpts from the report and interviews with two of the committee’s senators…

From the outset of the pandemic, Mr. Bolsonaro has gone out of his way to minimize the threat of the virus. As countries around the world locked down, and his own people began filling hospitals, he encouraged mass gatherings and discouraged masks. An avowed vaccine skeptic, he lashed out at any who dared criticize him as irresponsible.

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Josh Feldman - Senior Editor

Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac