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Mother of all scandals: “King” Bolsonaro and cabinet caught with their pants down

Monday, May 25th 2020 - 08:57 UTC
Full article 95 comments
Littered with obscenities, insults, tirades and potentially incriminating statements, the video triggered outcry in Brazil Littered with obscenities, insults, tirades and potentially incriminating statements, the video triggered outcry in Brazil

On Apr 22, Brazil was fast becoming a new coronavirus flashpoint, but President Jair Bolsonaro and his cabinet barely mentioned the pandemic in a videotaped meeting that has triggered outrage and fuelled a potentially explosive investigation.

Indeed, one of the few mentions of COVID-19 in the video - released on Friday (May 22) as part of a probe into whether the far-right president obstructed justice by firing the federal police chief - was when the environment minister said the government should take advantage of the distraction created by the pandemic to relax the country's environmental protection rules.

Littered with obscenities, insults, tirades and potentially incriminating statements, the video triggered outcry in Brazil, where many questioned the government's policy-making amid a pandemic that has killed more than 22,000 people in the country.

“It's two hours full of swear words and delirium, derision and disrespect for the country. Brazil is going through its worst crisis in decades, and the president never mentions the pandemic as a problem that concerns him,” wrote respected columnist Miriam Leitao in newspaper Globo. “The absence is shocking.”

The video's existence emerged when popular justice minister Sergio Moro resigned two days after the meeting, accusing Bolsonaro of inappropriate “political interference” in the federal police.

Police are reportedly investigating multiple cases involving Bolsonaro and his inner circle, including allegations his son Carlos, a Rio de Janeiro city councilor, oversaw a fake-news campaign to benefit his father.

In the video, Bolsonaro rails against the federal police for failing to give him information and says, “I'm not going to wait for them to f**k my family and friends.”

Bolsonaro denies trying to stifle investigations, and said the video proved the accusations against him were a “farce.”

Analysts generally agreed the video, which was released by Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello, did not contain a “smoking gun” to incriminate the president.

However, other material contained in the nearly unedited footage could prove just as damaging to Bolsonaro, who faces growing disapproval ratings 18 months into his four-year term.

Bolsonaro called two state governors a “piece of s**t” and “pile of manure” for defying him by imposing coronavirus stay-at-home measures.

His education minister called for the Supreme Court justices to be thrown in jail for giving states the final say in the matter. His women's minister said governors and mayors should be arrested, too.

Turning to diplomacy, his economy minister called China “that guy you just have to put up with” because it is Brazil's biggest export destination.

Brazilian media counted 39 swear words in all, including 31 by the president, and there was widespread condemnation from commentators, opposition parties and civil society groups of the meeting's tone.

“It showed the vulgarity of the current government. They are like barbarians throwing the country into chaos, disrespecting the law and ignoring the constitution,” Congressional opposition parties said in a joint statement.

The meeting showed a government made for the “post-truth era,” said political analyst Geraldo Monteiro of Rio de Janeiro State University. “The Bolsonaro government wasn't made to govern. It's a militant government that's here to implement a conservative agenda, not run the country,” he said.

The meeting may be most damning for what it does not contain.

The cabinet did not have a single policy discussion on how to handle coronavirus in Brazil, which now has the second-most infections in the world.

The administration showed “total disregard for COVID-19 deaths and the agony of their respective families,” said veteran political analyst David Fleischer.

“The only minister to mention COVID-19 was the environment minister.”

And that mention generated a firestorm of controversy.

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles says in the video, “Now that the media's only talking about COVID, we need to use this moment of calm ... to change all the regulations.”

That was widely taken as a call to open protected land in the Amazon rainforest to mining and agriculture - something Bolsonaro has aggressively pushed - though Salles said Saturday he meant only that the government should try to cut red tape.

Environmental protection advocates were not buying that argument.

“It became clear that the role of the environment ministry is to dismantle any environmental protection we have in the country,” said Erika Berenguer, an Amazon ecologist at Oxford and Lancaster Universities, who joined groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund in condemning Salles' comments.

Categories: Politics, Brazil.

Top Comments

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  • Chicureo

    bushpilot

    It's obvious that the mendacious ”Marxist useful idiot” needs to take a hard look in his basement mirror, because he just looks like a windup mechanical mendacious monkey — madly clanging its little tin cymbals with nonsense...

    Little J

    Do you really think Lula or Dilma would have done anything better? My observations of the PT leads me to believe not...

    May 25th, 2020 - 09:16 pm +2
  • bushpilot

    All your arguments are wrong.

    All my arguments are “irrefutably” right. Just because.

    May 26th, 2020 - 09:57 pm +2
  • Chicureo

    bushpilot

    It greatly amuses me every time when the two Marxist “useful idiots” refuse to acknowledge the horrendous crimes of the criminal activities of Maduro, Lula, Dilma and the entire PT — yet cry “wolf” because I recognize an admittedly imperfect, but courageous leader that saved my country from Communism.

    I have the fortune of having three Venezulean ex-pats working with me here in the Aconcagua Valley that wish they would have military overthrow in their beloved nation...

    Before Chavez, Venezuela was the richest country in Latin America with (by LA standards) outstanding public health and education with the largest proven petroleum reserves in the world...

    ...today, they have to import refined petroleum under armed escort to just stay functioning...

    The party of Dilma and Lula are infiltrated and controlled by Marxist socialists and Bolsonaro is a refreshing change in direction back away to free market capitalism, which the basement dwelling Gollum and the Marxist deranged Enrique can't accept...

    Brazil is a 200+ million populated time bomb unless they get the economy back into recovery during this pandemic scare.

    ¡Viva Socialismo!

    May 26th, 2020 - 03:00 pm +1
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