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Oct. 23, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show

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President Jair Bolsonaro | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 132

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	And the less the population is able to actually understand what's actually going on, the easier it will be for the party to capture them and have them as allies.
	They are also for liberalizing abortion, and also the so-called gender ideology.
	Even children, not very few, but children age 7, 8, 9.
	Children think not to know whether they're girls or boys, and vice versa.
	Or boys don't know whether they're boys anymore.
	So this is really terrible.
	Our guest, Jair Bolsonaro, is the current president of Brazil.
	He's up for re-election at the end of this month.
	The presidency of Brazil has been turbulent for nearly all of its modern history.
	For 20 years, the 60s through the 80s, Brazil was run by military dictatorship following a coup against a socialist president.
	More recently, President Dilma Rousseff was impeached after the country was driven into economic crisis in 2014.
	Brazil's government has long been filled with corruption, too.
	The current election pits former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula, who actually served time in jail for corruption, against Bolsonaro, who has targeted corruption in allegedly controversial ways.
	Bolsonaro has also taken militantly conservative stances on issues ranging from killing government programs to opening up gun availability for law-abiding citizens, from harsher treatment of criminals to opening up more economic development in areas prized by environmentalists.
	Bolsonaro has been slandered as a fascist, a dictator, or an authoritarian by many in the media, but his agenda of more assertive force to cut crime and promote traditional family values has made him hugely popular with Brazilians.
	He won in 2018 with 55% of the vote.
	This time around, he bucked the odds to survive a first-round face-off with Lula, dramatically outperforming the early polls.
	Many countries that make up South America face political corruption and destructive progressive policies.
	We see that in Venezuela, Argentina, Chile.
	In today's episode, we discuss if Brazil's momentum away from big government could lead a way forward for many other countries in South America.
	Plus, we discuss Bolsonaro's experience dealing with the Trump administration compared with the Biden administration, his COVID policies, his political opponent Lula, and the significance of the upcoming Brazilian election.
	Welcome to the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.
	This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
	Protect your online privacy today at expressvpn.com.
	Slash Ben, just a reminder, the end of this episode will be exclusively for our Daily Wire Plus members.
	If you're not a member yet, click the link at the top of this episode's description.
	Get the full conversation with President Bolsonaro, as well as every one of our awesome guests.
	President Jair Bolsonaro, thanks so much for joining the show.
	Really appreciate it.
	It's a pleasure talking to you, and I'm at your disposal.
	So why don't we begin with how wrong the polls were in your original first round election matchup with Lula.
	The polls were off by a significant percentage.
	He was widely expected by the pollsters to run away with the first round.
	There would be no second round if he had done so.
	Instead, the polls ended up being incredibly close and going into the runoff election, it looks as though you are in a dead heat.
	So what do you attribute the fact that the polls were so dramatically wrong the first time around?
	Same thing happened back in 2018.
	The polls are actually bought out and they do have the power to influence voters in their choices.
	And I believe that about 3 to 4% of the population tends to tag along and vote for the candidate that is the winning candidate in the polls.
	And that's what happened in Brazil.
	Let's talk about your opponent.
	We'll start with him as opposed to starting with you.
	We'll get to your record in just one second.
	For those who don't know, in the United States, what is at stake in this election in Brazil?
	Can you spell out for people what is the election between?
	Who is Lula?
	Why is it important that he be prevented from regaining office?
	And perhaps you can tell the story of how he ended up running for office after being in jail not so long ago.
	Well, first of all, I see that there's an element of concern on the part of the U.S.
	regarding Venezuela.
	I've already met and discussed these issues with the U.S.
	administrations.
	And we in Brazil cannot possibly join the Venezuela club or team of countries, which now includes Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua.
	Brazil is the most important country in South America.
	So, if Brazil succumbs to the left wing, that's the end of South America.
	Now, who is Lula?
	He is a corrupt politician who has left a huge trail of corruption in Brazil.
	That's his legacy.
	I mean, take a look at the pension funds, for instance.
	The amounts that were stolen away from the pension funds came to about 45 billion Brazil Reais, roughly 9 billion US dollars.
	dollars.
	And in the Brazilian oil companies, state-owned oil company Petrobras as a whole, the ineptness incurred by the company under the Workers' Party, Lula and the administrations, it came to about 170 billion U.S.
	dollars, the ineptness level.
	And this is the result of embezzlement and overbuild, procurement and purchases, or purchases that were never delivered and public works that were started but never completed.
	In other words, this gives you a small portrait of what the Workers' Party administrations were all about in Brazil.
	They have a lot of money.
	They have actually a lot of money outside of Brazil as a result of their negotiations with pension funds.
	And yes, they do have this huge economic power in their hands.
	Which they mobilize to foster the interests of the Lula candidacy.
	And they're also a factory of fake news.
	Lula himself just a few days ago disclosed that in Brazil, politicians must lie, because lies fly.
	Whereas truth can only move very slowly.
	So they'll do anything to regain access to the government.
	And they are even willing to change these old stances by the party, such as, for example, their view on abortion, gender ideology, and family values and principles.
	So, we must avoid and prevent him from being elected, and do so through the weapons of democracy.
	And of course it is more difficult to fight the better with the weapons of democracy, but we are playing within the rules set by our Constitution.
	And they accuse me of being what they were, or what they intend to be.
	They accuse me of being a dictator, or being a homophobic man, or being a racist person.
	They say I don't like black people.
	They actually tried to say whatever they can say against me.
	They have also voiced a lot of slanders and calumnies against me.
	They've accused me of being actually a cannibal, and a pedophile, and a fascist, and anything goes for them, basically.
	And they're doing pretty much what they did back in 2018, when we won the elections.
	And actually now, they're being much more aggressive in the 2022 elections.
	So how durable are the institutions in Brazil right now?
	Obviously Lula had been barred from office, he was in jail, and then his conviction was overturned.
	Why was it overturned?
	And you've also expressed some doubt in the past about the electoral process in Brazil and how honest it is.
	Do you have faith that the current election, as close as it's going to be, will be honestly carried out?
	Well, I have been calling the elections into question for quite some time in Brazil, because our electoral system or voting system is not found in any other country in the world, a country that has a reasonable, sizable economy.
	I mean, we have only heard of a few other small countries that do use the electronic voting system as we do in Brazil, in addition to Venezuela itself.
	And these questions, of course, have been espoused by many more people in the populace at large.
	And we have actually driven to ensure transparency in the elections.
	But we have not really had the upper hand so far.
	We will be having elections, of course, in the very near future.
	And what makes us more confident about the ongoing elections is the fact that the armed forces in Brazil have been invited to join in electoral transparency.
	In the Electoral Assessment Committee, and they have performed a very active and relevant role.
	But the armed forces have told me that it is impossible to grant a seal of credibility or reliability to the voting system given the very many vulnerabilities or weaknesses that the system still features as it stands today.
	The upper electoral court, the superior electoral court in Brazil, has seven justices in it.
	And three of them are also members of the Supreme Court.
	And these people are appointed, politically appointed way back by the political parties, these justices.
	So, going back to your question, yes, Lula was arrested, he was in jail, he was sentenced, and he was serving his term in jail.
	And then, the Supreme Court as a whole, The Supreme Court justices as a whole decided to go back in time and reinterpret what we call arrest or imprisonment at the first instance, legal instance level.
	And the Supreme Court had determined that people who had been sentenced only at the second instance level would still be able to run for office.
	However, the Supreme Court decided on a majority basis that a person can only be arrested and put in jail if he or she is sentenced by a third legal instance.
	And that is what allowed Lula to be freed.
	We also have a law in Brazil called the Clean Slate Law, whereby candidates can only stand for office if they have been sentenced by a lower court.
	Not the Lula's case, because he had already been sentenced by a mid-level court, so he would technically not be able to run for office legally speaking.
	However, one of the justices in the Supreme Court, this justice, decided to declare the corruption case against Lula null and void.
	A case where he had already been sentenced at a third judiciary level, on a unanimous basis, given the evidence.
	And that justice simply said that the problem was the geographical jurisdiction.
	He should have been tried in Brazil, the federal capital, not in Curitiba, the state capital where he was sentenced.
	So he went ahead and quashed and cancelled his sentencing.
	So that meant that the case went back to the first judiciary instance.
	In Brazil, the Clean Slate Law does not cover people who are being tried or have only been sentenced at a first judiciary instance.
	That being the case, Lula da Silva gained the right to stand for office and take part in the elections because of this very, very subjective stance, taken by this Supreme Court justice who was appointed by a Workers' Party president in the past.
	We'll get to more with President Bolsonaro in just one moment first.
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	So I want to ask about Lula's campaign.
	Lula obviously has a very far left past.
	He's been campaigning as much more of a moderate this time around.
	When he was actually in office, he seemed to govern slightly more moderately than he actually campaigned originally.
	Do you think that he's lying about what he intends to do?
	How much of a socialist is he?
	Or is he mainly sort of a welfare state, American-style Democrat?
	The left wing did not really count that corruption at a huge level would be disclosed and reviewed under his administration.
	And it was actually disclosed by chance.
	What in Brazil we described as being the car wash corruption scandal investigations, where a lot of money was embezzled, as I mentioned.
	pension funds, embezzlement coming out to 8, 9 billion US dollars.
	The oil company Petrobras, 170 billion US dollars were embezzled and diverted.
	The Brazilian National Development Bank, about 80 billion US dollars were diverted.
	The Federal Savings Bank, CAIXA, about 9 billion US dollars.
	dollars were embezzled and diverted.
	Caixa, the savings bank, is one thing, but there's also the Federal Savings Bank's pension fund, so we're talking about more than 500 billion U.S.
	dollars altogether for the amount of money that was diverted and embezzled under the Lula and Dilma Rousseff administrations.
	So, this was tremendously strong in Brazil, the corruption, scandal investigations.
	So much so that the former president Rousseff's term in office was discontinued in the middle of her term in office as a result of an impeachment process.
	In the end of that process, Dilma was impeached from office.
	And again, another very subjective stance was taken.
	Because in Brazil, when one is impeached, they are not eligible to stand for office again for eight years.
	And in that case, the other Supreme Court justice, who actually led the case at the Supreme Court, entered into an agreement with the senators and allowed Dilma to remain eligible for a public office.
	Of course, I voiced a very compelling vote against that, of course, during the impeachment voting in Congress.
	I was pretty well known at the time, became even better known.
	And of course the press tremendously criticized me and I became even more well known in Brazil.
	And I had already decided to stand for office back in 2018, at that point in time.
	They did try to assassinate me and murder me on September 16th, before the election date.
	And they were not successful.
	And I think I actually, in truth, won the elections in the first round.
	But we went ahead and had to dispute the election in the second round.
	And this would be a rather complicated chapter.
	It would take a few hours to explain to you in greater detail.
	But we ended up winning the elections.
	Yes.
	And I took office and set up a cabinet very much unlike all presidents who came before me.
	Because in the past, presidents would set up their cabinets and assign or appoint their ministers by accepting impositions given top-down by political parties to make sure the president would enjoy support in Congress.
	I actually appointed my cabinet.
	One third of which is made up by members of the military, and the other third made up by civilian professionals who were very keenly aware of their responsibilities and who were technically capable to carry out their tasks and work at the helm of their respective ministries and portfolios.
	In 2019 we had a very difficult year in that there was not a very good chemistry or dialogue going on, a very good working relationship between us and Congress.
	But we went through and succeeded.
	We got to the end of the year successfully.
	And in 2020, of course, we had COVID, the COVID-19 pandemic, which, of course, strongly hit the whole world.
	2021, of course, we had even more problems.
	Other issues such as, for example, water shortage of an unprecedented level in Brazil.
	2022, the war in Ukraine, together with, of course, inflation spiraling, going up all over the world.
	We were able to bring inflation under control by lowering the taxes on fuels.
	And we also, of course, made sure to cater to the needs of the have-nots by granting an emergency aid, socially-oriented benefit, to the tune of $120, covering 21 million families and households throughout Brazil.
	All, of course, was done within what we describe as fiscal responsibility.
	At this point in time, we have posted the third month in a row of negative inflation rate, of deflation.
	Of course, foodstuffs and other prices are going down.
	The labor market is doing pretty well, and 8%, a little more than 8%, is our current unemployment rate, or joblessness rate in Brazil.
	A good rate as compared to previous administrations.
	The economy is doing very well, and we have also lowered taxes that would otherwise apply to other products.
	Actually, one third of a tax called Tax on Industrialized Products, or IPI, covering 4,000 such products in Brazil.
	And we're actually boasting our revenue collection.
	There's a spending cap that applies.
	This so-called spending cap, we call it a ceiling.
	And Brazil is doing very well, actually.
	We are a world powerhouse when it comes to foodstuffs.
	We are a major supplier of foodstuffs to the world.
	And also, as proposed by us, and already in effect, Brazil, in the near future, will be a major exporter of clean energy, green hydrogen.
	The coastline of the Brazilian northeastern region, up north, In that region alone, the forecast potential indicates that we will be able to produce clean energy, the equivalent of 50 times more than the bi-national power plant between Brazil and Paraguay produces today.
	So, we have foodstuffs, we have energy, we have biodiversity, we have mineral resources available, and we are also endowed with a wonderful climate, wonderful climate conditions, arable lands that remain untouched, not yet used.
	And we do preserve two-thirds of our natural vegetation, which remains pristine, just as it was when we were discovered back in the 1500s.
	So we have this beautiful path ahead, a virtuous path in the future time horizon so that we can make progress.
	We used to be the 13th largest economy.
	We are now the 10th largest economy.
	And year after year, we were able to, of course, regain our positions in the overall ranking.
	We have very good relations with the whole world, of course, given our potentialities.
	And Brazil is the kind of country that every country in the world would like to enjoy a partnership with.
	When we look at Brazil, the old joke about Brazil was that it was the country of the future and it always would be.
	And a large part of that has been because of the regulations, the taxation, and the corruption in Brazil.
	How have you taken on the issue of deregulating the economy?
	What have you done with tax policy?
	And most of all, how do you fight corruption in a state where, as you describe, multiple leaders have been indicted for corruption?
	Some have served time in jail.
	How do you fight corruption in a state that's been so endemically For almost 40 years now, we have had no corruption case in Brazil.
	And I have always said, time and again, if corruption cases emerge and come to the fore, we will help investigate.
	Accusations and hearsay do crop up here and there, but they do not prosper or thrive because there has been no diversion of government funds anywhere.
	And why has that been the case?
	Well, because we have not accepted, say, top-down suggestions by political parties to be part and parcel of the administration.
	Whether you're talking about ministries, or portfolios, or state-owned companies, or state-owned banks, every cabinet minister or CEO of a state-owned bank, or a CEO of a company, they are the ones who are responsible for appointing all of their staff members.
	I, as president, do determine that they must not yield into political pressure or any suggestions to the effect of appointing people that they're not familiar with or know well.
	Take the Brazilian National Development Bank, for example.
	They would lend money to dictatorships around South America.
	It's not done anymore.
	There's this former federal representative where 10 million US dollars were found in his apartment.
	And that man happened to be a director, a key director at the Federal Savings Bank.
	And of course, that diverted money came from the bank.
	So we have fought corruption in Brazil.
	We don't talk about corruption anymore in Brazil.
	Political parties no longer pressure me to get positions in the government.
	So this is overcome and done away with.
	And because we have appointed technical professionals to work at the ministries, they have rolled up their sleeves and got down to work.
	Take a look at the Ministry of Mines and Energy just this past week.
	In the past, we would be unable to actually tap into lithium deposits in a specific region in Minas Gerais, known as River Valley, because of issues within the government circles.
	We've overcome all of that, and now we are in a position to explore the lithium deposits available in that state.
	Now, take the offshore wind energy project, for example.
	That has already been properly deregulated as well.
	And, before the end of the month, we will be resuming the construction of our third nuclear power plant, the so-called Angra III plant.
	Also, in the northeastern state of Serra, as a result of a decision made this year through a presidential decree and the ministerial order, we will be tapping into uranium deposits in the northeastern state of Serra, in a region known as the Santa Equiteria, the area that could refer to thousands or tens of things that are effort, tens of efforts that are currently on the way as a result of the government's initiatives.
	Efforts to remove the red tape and thousands of regulatory standards and norms that would certainly hamper the life of the business community.
	We put an end to all of those standards.
	Actually, 90% of those standards were undone.
	And we also established the law in 2019, in the first year of my administration, known as the Economic Freedom Law, the Economic Freedom Act.
	And at the end of the Lula da Silva administration, back in 2010, It would take you, as a business person, an average of about four months to open a company.
	Under my administration, it takes no more than a day to open a business, a new business.
	Furthermore, today, Brazil is the seventh most digitized country in the world.
	And all of that has encouraged entrepreneurship and led more companies to be open, and, of course, has expanded the free market.
	In the past, there would be these public examinations, competitive public examinations, that would ultimately bloat the government apparatus, whereas we have, of course, established that government or public examinations will only be carried out for what is absolutely necessary, such as, for example, the federal police, highway police service, and other required services.
	and by not opening with...
	As we digitize the government services and as we stop conducting public competitive examinations for those services that can be carried out by a competitive private sector, measures have been taken and have explained the fact that the Brazilian economy was not hard hit with COVID in 2020.
	The world expected Brazil to decrease its economy by 10%, and we only saw a 4% decrease in the economy.
	Brazil is actually one of the countries that has seen the lowest economic decrease as a result of the COVID pandemic.
	And this reflects very positively to the good of the population, because the population has been able to keep their jobs today.
	In retrospect, we have established or created more than 5 million job posts in three and a half years.
	The informal labor market is very strong in Brazil.
	We're talking about those who work without formal working documents.
	And the labor market has gone back to normalcy levels, pre-pandemic normalcy levels, for the 15th week in a row.
	Inflation levels have been revised downward in Brazil.
	And also, week after week, our GDP, our Gross Domestic Product, has been revised upward.
	So this is a clear-cut signal of the fact that the economy is indeed recovering, and obviously not when we talk about services.
	It is also a sign of the fact that the population is working.
	And this is a country where everyone has an opportunity to work.
	The Workers' Party under the Lula administration, they always tried to get the population to live off and depend on the state.
	We have undone that.
	And I believe that if the former president, Rousseff, had not been impeached, Lula, or someone from the Workers' Party, would have been elected in 2018, and this country would become a Venezuela.
	Look at Argentina.
	About a year and a half ago, President Fernandez took office in Argentina.
	Friends with Lula and with other members of the so-called Sao Paulo Forum, founded in Brazil.
	Not too many decades ago, Argentina's GDP was similar to ours in Brazil.
	Whereas today, their GDP is way down, and 40% of the population is actually living at the poverty line.
	And in Brazil, the fact is that just a few weeks ago, the opponent candidate promised that the population would be able to eat sirloin and drink beer.
	By coincidence, The candidate at the time in Argentina also promised the Argentinian voters that they would be able to eat barbecue every weekend.
	And interestingly enough, their advertising would show the supermarket shelves, empty shelves, nothing to eat.
	Take a look at Argentina.
	There's not even bones available for people to eat, because the way Argentinian President Fernandes has interfered with the economy, by banning the country to export meat product, by taxing several agricultural products up to 33%.
	So the foreign export market, that measure has disencouraged cattle ranchers and farmers.
	So with less supply, you have more inflation and food shortage as a result.
	So that is precisely the problem facing Argentina these days.
	And of course, we do not want that to take place in our country.
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	So to what do you attribute the upswing of the radical left in South America?
	We've seen South American leftists take over in Chile, in Colombia, in Argentina.
	Obviously, we've seen the catastrophe in Venezuela and, you know, the fact that Lula is now pulling at somewhat close to parity with you, is demonstrative of a continuing strength of the far left in South America.
	Why is South America seemingly so susceptible to this sort of stuff after dramatic failure after dramatic failure on the continent?
	The pandemic has led the people, of course, to lose purchasing power in high inflation levels and prices.
	And a portion of the population is just unable to understand that this is indeed a worldwide phenomenon and issue.
	Take a look at Argentina, for example.
	In Chile, Colombia, for instance.
	In these countries, people, of course, experienced a lot of hardship.
	Not so much in Brazil.
	Of course, we did experience hardship, but not as much.
	And the fact is that people voted for left-wing proposals, therefore blaming the incumbent president of today for the economic crisis, without considering the consequences or the effect on the economy, as well as the consequences that followed the stay-home policy.
	We'll take care of the economy later.
	That policy led a lot of people to lose purchasing power.
	Poor people.
	And these people were actually led to vote for these proposals in the lies put forth by the left wing.
	People did the same thing in Brazil, and we are actually trying to explain and disclose to the population what's actually going on.
	So we have had more time.
	Other countries apparently did not have that chance.
	Currently, I do now have the chance to show and explain to the population what's actually going on, and what we went through, and also the reason why there's been some inflation.
	There was some inflation and price hikes in the recent past.
	In Brazil, one liter of gasoline costs about 4.50 in Brazilian real, about 0.8 US dollars, or 80 cents of one dollar.
	Actually, half than in the US.
	Food, or the price of foods that have always gone down in Brazil.
	One kilogram of poultry meat in Brazil, for example, costs more than 10 reals, about 2 US dollars by comparison.
	And I know that food prices in the US are much higher, many, many times higher than in Brazil.
	So, the Workers' Party, they spent 14 years in the federal administration and they ended up destroying Brazil's education foundation.
	They have also always advocated that students should be passed from grade automatically.
	And they also advocated that students should be given a benefit without any actual stimulus to study.
	You have the PISA, P-I-S-A, International Student Evaluation, or International Student Assessment, where 70 countries take part in that international assessment, and Brazil has ranked among the lowest-ranking countries in that examination, actually behind five countries in Latin America.
	We should actually rank number one.
	But that's actually a positive investment for the Workers' Party, because the less the population gets information, And the less the population is able to actually understand what's actually going on, the easier it will be for the party to capture them and have them as allies.
	And they play really dirty pool in Brazil.
	They're very aggressive.
	They're totally against, not so much freedom of expression, but they are totally for the liberalization of drugs and marijuana as well.
	They are also for liberalizing abortion and also the so-called gender ideology.
	Even children, not very few, but children age 7, 8, 9.
	Children think not to know whether they're girls or boys, and vice versa.
	Or boys don't know whether they're boys anymore.
	So this is really terrible.
	In the Brazilian school system, many people actually complete their undergraduate studies and they're still half illiterate.
	Partly illiterate.
	Under the Workers' Party administration, it would take three years for a child to be taught to read and write.
	Under my administration, more than half of Brazilian municipalities, according to our teaching methodologies, it takes them about six months to learn to read and write.
	So we are focusing our interests at that foundation.
	We want our children to enjoy freedom, and we are teaching them to read and write.
	Yes, in their first year, in the first six months in the school setting.
	And this is one of our major efforts these days.
	For a substantial part of the Brazilian schooling system, they are all about ideology.
	They are trying to train activists and militants in the school setting.
	The best university in Brazil, the Sao Paulo University.
	USP actually ranks among the world's 200, 250 best universities worldwide.
	So, there's only one Brazilian university in the world that can be described as being among the world's best universities.
	I mean, the legacy, the legacy left by the Workers' Party in the educational system is really catastrophic.
	So one of the areas in which you've been widely demonized by the media has been with regard to social policy.
	You mentioned before your positions on abortion, on same-sex marriage.
	Brazil has been historically a very traditional country when it comes to things like marriage, when it comes to abortion.
	large percentage of the population of Brazil, obviously, is Catholic.
	What do you make of the push by the far left in countries like Brazil to confuse people with gender ideology or to liberalize efforts with regard to abortion?
	In 2010, the last year of the former Lula's administration, followed by Dilma Rousseff, also with the same party.
	Back in 2010, Lula managed to pass a bill of law in the lower house of parliament that would sentence priests or evangelical ministers up to three and a half years in jail if they declined or refused to actually conduct a ceremony, a same-sex ceremony, marriage or wedding ceremony.
	Obviously, enough evangelical pastors and priests would not agree with the proposal.
	Same-sex marriage.
	And the issue, of course, found its way all the way up to the Supreme Court.
	And I joined the battle by advocating that priests should be entitled to not accept holding a religious ceremony if the wedding ceremony was not in line with the Bible.
	And that is why I was given the label of a homophobic politician.
	I was actually defending that priests and pastors should be given the right to decline or refuse if it was not in line with the Bible.
	And the LGBT population probably accounts for about 5% in Brazil.
	So that portion of society was cussed against me as a result of that stance I took.
	To give priests and pastors the freedom to not conduct certain religious ceremonies that were not in line with the Bible.
	So they actually take these stances that we had in the past to try to demonize us.
	In Brazil, they even say that I am against the Northeastern population.
	They account for about one-third of the Brazilian population.
	And I am even married to a daughter of a Northeastern man.
	So, all I do, they try to demonize me.
	And when I talk about farmers, they say that I am a destroyer of nature.
	When I advocate, for example, one's legitimate interests or criteria governing, for example, one's right to have a firearm at home, they accuse me of trying to arm the population to try to breed chaos in Brazil.
	And the vast majority of the mainstream media in Brazil, they're left-wing people.
	The survey and poll institutes themselves, they've been bought away by the left wing.
	They have a lot of money.
	I would never be able to buy a poll or a polling institute.
	So there's a lot of promotional media, marketing, effort undertaken by the Workers' Party.
	And it's not that different vis-à-vis the United States.
	A lot of left-wing mainstream media.
	And we have faced up to them with the truth.
	And in Brazil, 90% of the population are Christians.
	Either Catholics or evangelical Christians.
	And a considerable part of the Christians in Brazil do understand the situation I'm in.
	And they defend me.
	They advocate for me.
	The opponent candidate, Lula, has often said, time and again, he will regulate the media, that he will apply censorship to the media.
	But still, the left-wing mainstream media supports them.
	They always try to regulate the media.
	They tried it when they were in government.
	And they were positive that Dilma would come to the end of her term in office and a new President Lula possibly would succeed her in yet another administration.
	And with yet another term in office, they would be able to impose communism and socialism without actually having to shoot one single shot.
	They were not successful because they found along the way someone like me, someone who proved to be inflexible, uncompromising, no negotiating with the left wing in terms of support sought in Parliament.
	And this is the sense we have upheld so far.
	So much so that I have never actually received any Workers' Party representative from Congress to come and talk to me.
	And in the recent elections, we have proved very successful in Parliament in electing about two-thirds of the legislature in the lower house of Parliament.
	They're now center-right-wing legislature.
	So the pathway is open for us to move ahead and reform the state apparatus, to make it swifter, leaner, more nimble.
	And we have actually gained quite a few positions, if you will, in the overall ranking of the world's current largest GDP levels.
	Are you surprised by the amount of vitriol from the American media for you?
	Because the amount of hatred, obviously, in Brazilian media, that's predictable to a certain extent.
	In every country, there's a lot of domestic opposition in the media to whomever is the leader.
	But the New York Times, for example, seems to really despise you at a deep level.
	I remember a couple of years ago when they were fighting accusations that you were about to essentially pillage the Amazon.
	This was a major, it was made into a major global issue.
	When it came to your handling of COVID, the New York Times seemed to spend almost every day covering how you were handling COVID.
	What do you make of the attention paid to you by international media, not just domestic media?
	I think you have to take into account the current trade contacts and Brazil's stance and positioning in the world.
	Brazil is a major powerhouse in terms of commodities, things we produce and the exports of the world.
	But we do produce a great deal of products and we have a very high productivity level.
	Our costs are lower.
	That's part of the reason.
	And look at Europe, for example.
	Who is actually interested in Europe, for example, in learning about truth when it comes to the environmental agenda in Brazil?
	If someone in Europe there says that the Amazon is not being caught on fire, that will be the end of their political career in Europe.
	All the times I've been abroad, such as, for example, the United Nations back in 2019, I have always talked about the Amazon.
	I have always, of course, voiced the truth about the Amazon.
	I've also often invited people to overfly the Amazon region with me.
	You won't see one single outbreak, one single fire outbreak.
	It is a rainforest by definition.
	It doesn't catch fire.
	I mean, the fire that is there is around the outskirts of the forest.
	It is there, no one denies that, and we are fighting that.
	So much so that if you compare, say, my four, roughly four years in government vis-à-vis the first years of Lula between 2011-2014, you will find that there was three times more deforestation under the first Lula administration than under my administration.
	So, we address these issues with a much greater sense of responsibility.
	Now, bear in mind that the Amazon region is as vast as Western Europe.
	It is huge.
	The Yamamame Indigenous Reserve itself is twice as large, territorially speaking, as the state of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil.
	Now, we did try to pass this one piece of legislation.
	We will probably succeed in passing it in the next year.
	I'm talking about the Land Regularization Act, whereby, through satellite means, you would be able to detect deforestation or any fire or heat outbreak and therefore immediately know who the owner of that plot of land is.
	And you would even know who the person's tax ID number is.
	And you would therefore be able to tackle and descend on the relevant person, and of course, check whether or not the deforestation was irregular or not.
	We were unable to pass that bill of law because the left wing was against us.
	Because they knew that I would have a tool in my hands to actually reveal the truth about fire outbreaks in the Amazon region.
	And of course, following my elections, I'm sure this bill of law will definitely be passed in Congress, and we will be able to put an end in full stop to all the lies that circulate out there about deforestation and fire outbreaks in the Amazon region, which is just not true.
	Folks, our conversation will continue with questions about President Trump versus President Biden and how President Bolsonaro has dealt with both of them.
	We'll also get to his COVID policy.
	All of that is for our Daily Wire Plus members.
	If you'd like to hear the full conversation, click the link at the top of the episode description and join us at DailyWirePlus.com.
	Well, President Bolsonaro, really appreciate you joining the show.
	Thank you so much for your time.
	And I know that you're a very busy man, so we really appreciate it.
	Thank you, man.
	man. Viva las Americas. And long live the Americas.
	The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is produced by Mathis Glover.
	Produced by Mathis Glover.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boren.
	Production manager, Brandon McGuire.
	Associate producer, Savannah Dominguez-Morris.
	Editing is by Jim Nickel.
	Camera and lighting is by Zach Genta.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
	Hair, makeup, and wardrobe is by Fabiola Cristina.
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	The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

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