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The former Brazilian president, squeezed by criminal investigations, looks to the United States to shift his nation’s politics — and maybe keep him a free man.
By Jack Nicas
Jack Nicas, who has covered Jair Bolsonaro since 2021, interviewed the former president in Brazil’s capital this week.
Jan. 16, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET
Jair Bolsonaro has had a rough couple of years: election losses, criminal cases, questionable embassy sleepovers. So when he finally received a piece of good news last week — an invitation to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration — it lifted his spirits.
“I’m feeling like a kid again with Trump’s invite. I’m fired up. I’m not even taking Viagra anymore,” the former Brazilian president said in an interview on Tuesday, employing his trademark sophomoric humor. “Trump’s gesture is something to be proud of, right? Who’s Trump? The most important guy in the world.”
But reality has a way of spoiling plans.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has confiscated Mr. Bolsonaro’s passport as part of an investigation into whether he tried to stage a coup after losing re-election in 2022. To attend Monday’s inauguration, Mr. Bolsonaro has had to request permission from a Supreme Court justice who is also his political nemesis.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s attorney general recommended that his request be rejected. Mr. Bolsonaro admitted he would likely be watching from home.
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That likely split screen — Mr. Trump returning to the world’s most powerful job while Mr. Bolsonaro stays home on court orders — would encapsulate the two political doppelgängers’ starkly divergent paths since they were voted out of office and then claimed fraud.
