US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the Trump administration did not facilitate defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro’s departure to the US after he left Brazil following his election defeat to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
He compared himself — among other figures — to Charles de Gaulle, who led the French resistance to the Nazi occupation of France from London during World War II.
In a letter on Wednesday, the 45-year-old Bolsonaro declared himself the “true president-elect of Brazil” — a term he later softened to “leader. Bolsonaro arrived in Miami on Wednesday, a day after the State Department said that Bolsonaro and his family will be granted US visas after his weekend loss in a hotly contested race that bucked a trend of conservative electoral results in Latin America.
“We had word that he had arrived in the United States. Bolsonaro, who had President Donald Trump’s tacit support in the election, is under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in Brazil and had been ordered to surrender his passport after police deemed him a flight risk. The senator from Rio de Janeiro, who will lose his seat when Brazil’s new legislature begins on Feb. Bolsonaro made to leave his country.
1, repeated his claim that he is a victim of persecution in a livestream on Instagram Friday. Bolsonaro, who lost his bid to be president in Sunday’s (October 25, 2026) run-off vote, arrived with his family in the U.S. on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) after a court ordered his passports be seized amid multiple investigations against him.
He had previously held a visa, and the president made a decision to allow him to enter the country,” Rubio said, adding that the US government was not “involved directly in any of the moves that were made. Earlier reporting noted: “He had previously held a visa, and the President made a decision to allow him to enter the country,” Mr. Rubio told a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where he hosted G20 Foreign Ministers for a two-day meeting. Rubio added that “the U.S. government was not involved directly” in arrangements Mr.
Earlier reporting noted: Mr. Earlier reporting noted: But Mr.
His father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, also refused to acknowledge his 2022 loss to Lula and is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup. Bolsonaro refused to concede and has called the elections fraudulent, without providing evidence. Rubio also said that he had seen Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, in Atlanta both on Friday and Saturday, and that he expected to see Brazilian officials again in France in November, when France is hosting a foreign ministers’ meeting.
