Trump Allies Push Claim That Lula Stole Brazilian Election, President Says Result Appeared ‘Rigged’

Close allies of President Trump are rejecting the victory of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil — the leftists who won a fourth presidential term on Sunday — stole the presidential election from a right-wing populist with ties to Mr. Trump’s inner circle. That conservative candidate, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, says he will wage a legal fight to have the results annulled. Mr. da Silva, known mononymously as “Lula,” served as president from 2003 to 2011 before being jailed on corruption charges. After being freed, Mr. da Silva challenged Mr. Bolsonaro’s father, President Jair Bolsonaro, in the 2022 election and narrowly defeated him. Mr. Bolsonaro is now under house arrest after being convicted of conspiring to illegally overturn the result of that year’s election and to assassinate Mr. da Silva. On Sunday, Mr. da Silva won a historic fourth term, defeating the younger Mr. Bolsonaro, who has served as a senator since 2019. Mr. da Silva won by just over 3.5 points. Conservatives in Brazil and here in the United States denounced the result even before Mr. da Silva was declared the winner, pointing to a unilateral decision by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin to keep polls open for an extra two hours on Sunday night. Both Messrs. da Silva and Bolsonaro petitioned the court to keep polls open due to disruption in voting because of public transportation delays and inclement weather. Speaking to supporters after Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court certified that Mr. da Silva had won by a margin of 4.4 million votes, Mr. Bolsonaro said the results were illegitimate because of the extended voting hours. According to Brazil’s largest newspaper, Folha de S.Paolo, fewer than 35,000 votes were cast during the extended two-hour voting period. Despite requesting the extended voting hours himself, Mr. Bolsonaro said it was unacceptable to be “changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.”“It’s impossible to recognize the results of the election in the context of these things that happened,” Mr. Bolsonaro said Sunday night. Mr. Trump himself said it appeared the election was “rigged” but stopped short of saying outright that he thought it was stolen. “It looked terrible to me,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he departed Andrews Air Force Base on Monday. “I didn’t take sides, but it looked like another rigged election, frankly.”“It looked very bad to me,” he said. As of Monday evening, neither the State Department nor the White House have released official statements on the results of the Brazilian election. Others in Mr. Trump’s orbit went farther, including those who have done work just steps from the Oval Office. Jason Miller, a longtime advisor to Mr. Trump who once consulted for the Bolsonaro family on political matters, denounced the results on Sunday, calling them suspect. In one X post, Mr. Miller shared Mr. Bolsonaro’s post-election comments declaring the results illegitimate, and enthusiastically shared a written statement from the senator in another post. In response to another X user, Mr. Miller called the results “Sus,” as in “suspicious.” In another post, Mr. Miller shared reporting from the New York Times citing Brazilian election law experts who said there was a chance that the result could be overturned. “Even the @NYTimes recognizes what happened today,” Mr. Miller wrote, along with siren emojis. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Miller was in the West Wing earlier this month. Another former Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, referred to the election results as “The Big Steal” in a post on the social media site Gettr. In other posts, Mr. Bannon called the election “stolen” and blamed “Marxists.” He also shared several posts from other conservative influencers denouncing Justice Zanin’s decision to extend voting hours. A spokesman for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, Andrew Kolvet, who also hosts Kirk’s livestream show, questioned the “statistical probability” of Mr. da Silva carrying hundreds of municipalities which Mr. Bolsonaro had carried in the first round of voting. “You can always vote communists in, you can’t always vote them out,” Mr. Kolvet wrote of the Brazilian result. Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., questioned the outcome of the election as well, blaming the press for not scrutinizing the decision to extend voting hours. “If a conservative government in Brazil did this, everyone in the mainstream press in America would lose their minds, but I guess they’re just choosing to be silent because it’s all for the cause,” the younger Mr. Trump wrote on X.

Trump Allies Push Claim That Lula Stole Brazilian Election, President Says Result Appeared ‘Rigged’

Trump Allies Push Claim That Lula Stole Brazilian Election, President Says Result Appeared ‘Rigged’

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