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May 10, 2023 - Epoch Times
16:20
Unvaxxed Brazil President Gets Home Raided, Aides Arrested in Vaccine Probe: Exclusive Interview
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Time Text
Let's play a quick game.
When the 38th president of Brazil, Mr.
Jair Bolsonaro, was here in the U.S., which of these American journalists was the last to interview him right before he went back to Brazil?
Was it Mr.
Anderson Cooper of CNN? Was it Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News?
Was it Chris Hayes of MSNBC? Or was it Roman Balmakov from the Epoch Times?
The correct answer is, of course, D, Roman from the Epoch Times.
That is, by the way, me.
However, before I show you that interview, let me preface by saying that there are many strange similarities between what's happening here in America with what's happening over in Brazil.
For instance, the 2016 election, which saw a populist victory in Donald Trump, was mirrored by Brazil's 2018 election, which saw a populist victory in Mr.
Jair Bolsonaro.
Then, America's January 6th was mirrored by Brazil's January 8th, the so-called Brazilian attack on Congress.
And then, more recently, just as President Trump's home was raided by the FBI in Florida, President Jair Bolsonaro's home was also just raided over in Brazil.
Specifically, last Wednesday, Brazilian police raided President Bolsonaro's home.
They arrested some of his top aides, And they seized his cell phone all as a part of a supposed probe into his COVID vaccination records.
According to the official narrative, the Brazilian federal police found supposed evidence of someone tampering with President Bolsonaro's vaccine records prior to him flying over to the U.S. But here's the odd thing.
While it is the case that most foreign visitors needed to be vaccinated in order to enter the U.S., there are broad exceptions for people like diplomats as well as high-level government officials from other countries, which President Bolsonaro would definitely fit the bill.
Furthermore, President Bolsonaro has been fairly open about his not getting the COVID vaccine himself.
In fact, a few years ago, during the global UN summit here in New York City, there was a very famous photo of President Bolsonaro and his entourage standing outside of a pizza shop eating slices of pizza because they were not allowed to enter the establishment because they couldn't show proof of vaccination because President Bolsonaro was very open about not having received a shot.
Furthermore, even after the police raided his home, here was a statement released by President Bolsonaro.
Quote,"...for my part, there was nothing falsified.
I did not take the vaccine.
Period." Now, this raid, as well as the arrest of some of his top aides, did not necessarily come as a surprise to anyone.
In fact, while President Bolsonaro was here in the U.S., I had the privilege of being the last American journalist to interview him before he flew back to Brazil.
And I asked him many questions, among which I asked him point-blank whether or not he expected to be arrested by the opposition party upon his return.
So smash that like button, smash that subscribe button, and take a listen to what he said.
So first question is, how's your health?
I know you were in the hospital a little while ago.
There's an Iranian warship right now parked in Brazil, What's your opinion of that?
What do you make of that though?
Because I know you were aligning Brazil more with America, with India, more of those type of countries.
Do you think this warship being there now shows that the Lula government is aligning more with Iran, possibly Russia, China?
Do you think there's a shift?
I'll go more to the side that he will pay attention to the South America, Venezuela, Argentina, and he will also continue to reach countries like Iran, North Korea.
I'm sure.
In South America, after this Brazilian election, almost every country now has a leftist government, maybe except three, Paraguay, Uruguay.
What do you think is the future of South America?
The security, the alignment there, what do you think is going to be the future?
Are you planning to go back to Brazil and And if so, when?
And when you go back, what is your plan?
What do you intend to do?
I will reassumir a liderança de oposição ao atual governo.
There are a good board of 90, 100 deputies, 12 senators.
There are a good board that makes the difference.
And the majority of this board have a purpose.
It's to follow a position of opposition, contrary to communism, contrary to populism and against corruption.
Do you have any fear or any expectations of retaliation from the Lula government once you go back to Brazil?
No Brasil vive uma incerteza.
O Poder Judiciário assumiu uma posição de desequilíbrio em relação aos seus poderes.
Eu não sou denunciado em nada no Brasil.
Não devo, não tenho corrupção.
Pode ser que haja alguma medida de força contra a gente que foge completamente ao processo ilegal.
Speaking of that, The parliament is trying to pass an open investigation into January 8th, but the Lula government is trying to block that.
They're blocking the release of the footage.
Do you have any opinion on why they're doing that?
Here in CPAC, when I was speaking to the different Brazilians here, it almost felt like speaking to refugees.
Because they talked about Brazil as a place they can't go back to.
They're being investigated.
They have these warrants after their arrest.
One guy had his TV station taken away.
What do you think is going to be the future of Brazil over the next two years?
So he's optimistic, he's saying, isn't it?
Is that the case?
I was told that in Brazil, you guys are the number one VPN downloaders.
People download VPNs so they can circumvent the firewall and actually access information and not be tracked.
What do you think that speaks of to the level of privacy and freedom of press in Brazil right now?
Do you feel like the crime of opinion, right?
A lot of people have told me that they're getting persecuted for crimes of opinion.
Do you think that that will change under the current administration or would your administration have to come back in order for that to go away?
It's very difficult to change with this government.
It will have to be a fight of resistance on our side.
And the great majority of the press is on the side of the current president.
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Now, Roman in the studio, back to you.
As I was following the election, the last election, when you had rallies, so many people were there, just huge, huge rallies, and yet you lost.
What do you think owes to that?
Why do you think the election turned out the way you did?
A population doesn't understand the defeat.
Nobody can interpret it as something that happened within the law.
I had much more support in 2022 than in 2018.
You didn't have support of the justices in the Supreme Court.
No, it's not the Supreme Court.
It's the electoral justice that few countries have.
For example, Brazil.
For example, the images, as you can see there, How do you intend to do that?
When you were on the campaign trail, you were talking about Ortega's persecution of the Christians in Nicaragua.
Do you foresee any similar situation happening in Brazil under the Lula government?
Pode acontecer, até porque o Lula é amigo do Ortega.
E a televisão também não permitia que a gente falasse dessa ligação Ortega-Lula.
How do you plan to sort of go around the fact that the media is not going to be supportive of you in the country?
Com outras plataformas que não sofrem censura no Brasil.
Mas no momento o Brasil está a situação que chama de ladeira abaixo na economia.
Então a população toda vai, no meu entender, em poucos meses se votar contra o atual presidente.
Também acredito que o Lula não termine o seu mandato.
In what sense?
He'll be indicted or impeached?
How do you foresee that playing out?
What will happen to the economy, in your opinion?
Estamos aí à beira de uma recessão.
Desemprego e falta de investimento por parte da iniciativa privada.
And so that'll just lead to such a recession that the people will rise up and demand something else.
Is that what you're saying?
All the measures that come to take are similar to the ex-president Dilma Rousseff, who ended Brazil and led us to a brutal unemployment rate in Brazil.
During the pandemic, a lot of the media and other countries criticized your approach to the mandates and the lockdowns.
But with some of the new data, the new studies that have come out and what we now know about things like masks and the effects of lockdowns, do you feel vindicated about the approach that you took during the COVID? It was a question that, with a little bit of consciousness, I saw that I was right, because I was also based on studies at the time.
It was just a question of mascara.
I gave the freedom of the person to vaccinate or not.
Other studies have appeared, especially the Pfizer, that the effects colaterals are quite dangerous.
Even the precoce treatment, now there are studies that recognize that what was used in Brazil could have saved much more people if it wasn't Another question.
Prior to the first election, not this election, but the previous election, you went to Asia.
Right now, Taiwan especially is a big, like, spark that could, you know, actually blow up into a war.
How can we, as a world, let's say, avoid World War III?
What is your opinion on that?
I think with Trump and President, we wouldn't have the problem with Afeganist and we wouldn't have the conflict with Russia, given the leadership that they had.
We wouldn't have talked about the World War III.
It would be the last World War.
You think without strong leadership, it's just inevitable?
Just slow, sleepwalking into it.
I believe that the world is going to a situation where the people will be the most important for the future.
Do you think we're there now already or is it something that's in this?
It will happen with the time.
We hope that the world will have peace.
But we know that this is the Ucrania with Russia that can be the end of a world conflict.
In both Canada and the US, more young people, people below the age of, let's say, 30, Have a much favorable view of socialism and communism.
Even in Canada, the majority of people support some form of socialism.
What would you tell young people who might not, for instance, know the history of South America?
What would you tell them about the realities of living under socialist rule?
It's difficult to change the girls because they are working from the schools.
The girls, a part considerable, doesn't see what's obvious, what's happening in other countries, in the case of Brazil, what happened with Venezuela, Argentina, Chile and Colômbia, in a situation quite similar.
They don't see that the future of them can be It's very negative.
Can you give us a positive?
How do we fix this problem?
It's doing our part.
It's not going to be a man who will save a country or another.
It's the sum of people who don't want to give themselves.
For example, in your area.
No Brasil, 90% da imprensa é de esquerda.
O que é difícil você entender...
No meu governo, quando a gasolina sofria algum reajuste, batia em mim.
Atualmente, o governo deu um reajuste e a imprensa está elogiando o reajuste dos combustíveis dado pela atual presidente.
A imprensa internacional perdeu bastante a credibilidade do Brasil, mas ainda tem um potencial muito grande de fazer a cabeça das pessoas.
And now lastly, as I mentioned at the top of today's episode, I'd like to mention that over on Epic TV, Epic Times' Brazilian team just published a phenomenal documentary called Epic Times' Brazilian team just published a phenomenal documentary called Brazil: A Last Stand in the Americas, detailing the inside story that you won't be seeing on legacy news outlets about what's really happening in regards to their most Here's a trailer for that documentary.
Latin America can be, at this moment, the great flag for the new left that we need to create in the world.
We don't want Brazil dominated by other power.
And we have other few power in Brazil.
Dilma Rousseff is in Cuba and today participated in a inauguration of a government financed by Brazil.
During the ceremony, the president classed as unjust the commercial blow to the country caribbean.
The president of the United States of America and the United States of America and the United States of America and the United States of America.
I will define the importance of China for Brazil.
There is no future of relations in Brazil without the China participation in all areas.
If you'd like to watch that phenomenal documentary, the link will be right there at the top of the description box.
And I should mention that our team over in Brazil, well, they put a lot of hard work and research into that documentary, and quite frankly, it shows, which is why it's such a rare look into the Brazilian election that, again, no matter how many news channels you watch here in America, you likely will not get this perspective.
And so if you want to check it out, the link, again, will be right there at the top of the description box below.
And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times.
Stay informed, and most importantly, stay free.
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