FLAVIO BOLSONARO HAMMERS LULA: LOOK AT YOUR DICTATOR FRIENDS WHILE YOU ATTACK MILEI
In a sharp exchange during Brazil’s presidential debate, Flávio Bolsonaro refused to let Lula lecture him about Argentina or Javier Milei. When Lula pressed him on whether he still backed the Argentine leader’s model, Flávio immediately turned the tables and called out the Brazilian president’s long-running associations with authoritarian regimes.
Lula asked: “Since you’re a friend of Milei, have you been following how Argentina is doing? Do you still say that your model is Milei’s model?”
Flávio fired back without hesitation: “Your friend who is Ortega of Nicaragua, a dictator. Your friend who is Maduro, who is imprisoned. Those are your friends. You sent your vice-president to visit the inauguration of the dictator of Iran. That’s what you turned Brazil into. Brazil is finished internationally because of your policy, Lula. Look at your friends.”
Lula tried to walk it back, claiming he never called himself a friend of Milei and only wanted to know if Flávio would follow the economic model praised by his advisor. He questioned poverty and unemployment numbers in Argentina and told Flávio he lacked the knowledge to keep praising the Argentine approach.
Flávio stayed on offense, arguing that left-wing governments, including Lula’s, had left large numbers of people in misery and that it was now the right’s job to clean up the damage: “The leftist government, Lula’s leftist government left so many people in misery that it’s hard, right?
The right has to come and fix it, fix the nonsense this government does. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to fix Brazil. The work won’t be easy, because he’s leaving Brazil deeply in debt. He’s leaving Brazil in the mud, but together we’re going to manage to rescue our country.”
The moment underscored a clear divide. While Lula focused on criticizing Milei’s record, Flávio highlighted the Brazilian president’s own history of warm ties to Ortega, Maduro, and Iran, then pledged to reverse the debt and economic damage he said Lula’s policies had created.