Hours after dramatically landing safely in Miami, Florida, Brazilian opposition candidate Flavio Bolsonaro is declaring himself the legitimate victor of last weekend’s election.
Bolsonaro and his family touched down on U.S. soil Wednesday morning amid international speculation about his whereabouts. He fled his home country under threat of prosecution by left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated him in an unprecedented comeback that the right-wing dissident is now formally alleging was a sham election.
“I want to say, not only to my 60 million voters but to the Brazilian people, that I am the elected president and that the criminals who stole Brazil’s election are part of a criminal organization that has established a tyranny,” he declared in the Wednesday letter.
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<p> ” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/flavio-bolsonaro-declares-himself-true-elected-president-of-brazil-after-fleeing-to-us-with-blessing-of-the-white-house.webp” src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/flavio-bolsonaro-declares-himself-true-elected-president-of-brazil-after-fleeing-to-us-with-blessing-of-the-white-house.webp” alt=”Bolsonaro in Miami” class=”wp-image-4783425″ srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/flavio-bolsonaro-declares-himself-true-elected-president-of-brazil-after-fleeing-to-us-with-blessing-of-the-white-house.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/flavio-bolsonaro-declares-himself-true-elected-president-of-brazil-after-fleeing-to-us-with-blessing-of-the-white-house.webp?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/flavio-bolsonaro-declares-himself-true-elected-president-of-brazil-after-fleeing-to-us-with-blessing-of-the-white-house.webp?resize=768,512 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”><figcaption class=)
Flavio Bolsonaro arrives at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, in Opa-locka, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)It seems that the right-wing dissident’s claims of election fraud will be at least passively bolstered by the U.S. government. President Donald Trump never endorsed his campaign, but told reporters this week that the election seemed “rigged.” He reiterated that viewpoint on Wednesday, while explicitly distancing himself from the Brazilian politician’s operations.
“We gave him a pass to come into the country, so we’ll see — but I won’t get involved,” Trump told reporters. “It was a very strange election. I thought they were treated very unfairly and I didn’t take a position in the election, as you know, but when I see something that’s inappropriate, I bring it up.”
Bolsonaro wrote in his letter: “I would like to thank President Milei for his courage, sense of justice and respect for the law, and President Trump and the wonderful American people for welcoming me.
“This is a land of liberty and of brothers who share the same values as the good people of my country,” he wrote. “President Trump is a great defender of freedom of expression.”
Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who specializes in Latin America, told the Washington Examiner he believes helping Bolsonaro was “the right thing to do for [Argentinian President Javier] Milei and Trump” — asserting that the right-wing leader is genuinely being “politically persecuted.”
Decrying the “mathematical impossibility” of his opponent “gaining more than 10 million votes between the first and second rounds,” Bolsonaro reiterated his previous criticisms of the Brazilian high court approving an extension of voting hours he claims tipped the scales. Critics have claimed that the last-minute extension was strategically deployed to increase ballots in left-wing strongholds while less favorable polls had closed.
The president of the nation’s Supreme Electoral Court has already announced that the irregularity could not have resulted in a large enough gain to overturn Lula’s 4-million-ballot lead and has affirmed the outcome.
Bolsonaro said he intends to fight against the incumbent Brazilian government from abroad. Calling on voters, civic institutions, and international leaders to peacefully protest the Lula government, Bolsonaro said escape was the only way to avoid the fate of his father, imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro.
“I want to be clear: I did not flee Brazil; I left for Brazil’s sake,” Bolsonaro told supporters in his letter. “I left a regime operating outside the rule of law so I could be the leader my people deserve. Silenced, imprisoned and censored, as my father is, I could not provide that leadership, and we would be left at the mercy of the institutional theater of an emasculated opposition controlled by a Supreme Court full of the regime’s lackeys.”
Immediately following Lula’s win, Brazilian authorities placed severe travel restrictions on Bolsonaro. Justifying it with an investigation into allegations of money laundering, he was deemed a flight risk and ordered to hand over both his Brazilian and Italian passports.
Reports began to emerge on Tuesday that Bolsonaro fled the country, but it wasn’t until Wednesday that the Argentinian Directorate of Migrations reported that Bolsonaro and his family had entered the country through the Tancredo Neves International Bridge border crossing. The statement went on to report that the family then “boarded a private flight” to Guayaquil, Ecuador.
From there, he boarded his final flight and landed in Miami, where he had been promised visas by the U.S. government.
“This entire affair after Brazil’s presidential election shows Lula DaSilva is no democrat but rather just an elected tyrant alongside his communist-run supreme court,” Martino said. “Any democrat in America who cares about democracy should be able to condemn Lula’s political persecution of his opponent the day after an election on bogus charges.”
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Reporters and public commentators noticed a small, symbolic anomaly on the letterhead used by Bolsonaro in his open letter.
The coat of arms of Brazil displayed the name Estados Unidos do Brazil, instead of the country’s official name, República Federativa do Brasil. The country went by the former name until 1968, when it was changed amid a military dictatorship.
