Jair Bolsonaro is the current president of Brazil, and is up for re-election at the end of this month. In this special, we talk to him about his campaign, his opponent, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the significance of the upcoming election. We also discuss his experience dealing with the Trump administration, his opposition to the Lula campaign, and why he's running for president in the first place. This show is sponsored by Express VPN. Protect your online privacy today at ExpressVPN.org/ProtectYourOnline Privacy Today at ExpressVpn.com/ProtectingYourData Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire Plus members get access to all of this and more by becoming a member of the Daily Wire PLUS Club. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and use the promo code: CRIMINALS at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase when you enter the offer ends on Nov. 19th. The offer ends Nov. 18th, when the ad-free version of The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is available nationwide. If you're not a member yet, click the link at the top of the episode to become a member! Subscribe to the show and receive 10% discount when you sign up for the show. This episode is available in Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover, and Audible. All Audible, Kindle, and iptroof, and all other major podcasting platforms. Subscribe and subscribe to our podcasting services. We'll be giving you access to our newest epsiode, and social media platforms. You'll get 20% off the show, too! The show will have access to the full-priced books, including Best Fiends, including The Huffington Post, The Economist, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and Hustler, and The Economist and The Atlantic, and so much more. Thanks for listening to The Economist? The Economist s newest issue will be out in full-edition, The Independent Journalist and The New Statesman, The Root, The Hustler Thank you get $5,000 of the show will be able to access all of your ad-only pricing plans, and more! FREE FASTEST & The Economist will have the chance to vote on the show on the next episode, too?
00:00:00.000And the less the population is able to actually understand what's actually going on, the easier it will be for the party to capture them and have them as allies.
00:00:08.000They are also for liberalizing abortion, and also the so-called gender ideology.
00:00:14.000Even children, not very few, but children age 7, 8, 9.
00:00:20.000Children think not to know whether they're girls or boys, and vice versa.
00:00:24.000Or boys don't know whether they're boys anymore.
00:00:30.000Our guest, Jair Bolsonaro, is the current president of Brazil.
00:00:33.000He's up for re-election at the end of this month.
00:00:35.000The presidency of Brazil has been turbulent for nearly all of its modern history.
00:00:38.000For 20 years, the 60s through the 80s, Brazil was run by military dictatorship following a coup against a socialist president.
00:00:44.000More recently, President Dilma Rousseff was impeached after the country was driven into economic crisis in 2014.
00:00:50.000Brazil's government has long been filled with corruption, too.
00:00:53.000The current election pits former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula, who actually served time in jail for corruption, against Bolsonaro, who has targeted corruption in allegedly controversial ways.
00:01:03.000Bolsonaro has also taken militantly conservative stances on issues ranging from killing government programs to opening up gun availability for law-abiding citizens, from harsher treatment of criminals to opening up more economic development in areas prized by environmentalists.
00:01:16.000Bolsonaro has been slandered as a fascist, a dictator, or an authoritarian by many in the media, but his agenda of more assertive force to cut crime and promote traditional family values has made him hugely popular with Brazilians.
00:01:29.000This time around, he bucked the odds to survive a first-round face-off with Lula, dramatically outperforming the early polls.
00:01:35.000Many countries that make up South America face political corruption and destructive progressive policies.
00:01:39.000We see that in Venezuela, Argentina, Chile.
00:01:42.000In today's episode, we discuss if Brazil's momentum away from big government could lead a way forward for many other countries in South America.
00:01:48.000Plus, we discuss Bolsonaro's experience dealing with the Trump administration compared with the Biden administration, his COVID policies, his political opponent Lula, and the significance of the upcoming Brazilian election.
00:01:59.000Welcome to the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.
00:03:07.000The polls are actually bought out and they do have the power to influence voters in their choices.
00:03:15.000And I believe that about 3 to 4% of the population tends to tag along and vote for the candidate that is the winning candidate in the polls.
00:04:49.000And in the Brazilian oil companies, state-owned oil company Petrobras as a whole, the ineptness incurred by the company under the Workers' Party, Lula and the administrations, it came to about 170 billion U.S.
00:05:05.000And this is the result of embezzlement and overbuild, procurement and purchases, or purchases that were never delivered and public works that were started but never completed.
00:05:15.000In other words, this gives you a small portrait of what the Workers' Party administrations were all about in Brazil.
00:05:22.000They have actually a lot of money outside of Brazil as a result of their negotiations with pension funds.
00:05:28.000And yes, they do have this huge economic power in their hands.
00:05:32.000Which they mobilize to foster the interests of the Lula candidacy.
00:05:36.000And they're also a factory of fake news.
00:05:45.000Lula himself just a few days ago disclosed that in Brazil, politicians must lie, because lies fly.
00:05:53.000Whereas truth can only move very slowly.
00:05:55.000So they'll do anything to regain access to the government.
00:05:59.000And they are even willing to change these old stances by the party, such as, for example, their view on abortion, gender ideology, and family values and principles.
00:06:14.000So, we must avoid and prevent him from being elected, and do so through the weapons of democracy.
00:06:20.000And of course it is more difficult to fight the better with the weapons of democracy, but we are playing within the rules set by our Constitution.
00:06:28.000And they accuse me of being what they were, or what they intend to be.
00:06:32.000They accuse me of being a dictator, or being a homophobic man, or being a racist person.
00:07:22.000And you've also expressed some doubt in the past about the electoral process in Brazil and how honest it is.
00:07:28.000Do you have faith that the current election, as close as it's going to be, will be honestly carried out?
00:07:35.000Well, I have been calling the elections into question for quite some time in Brazil, because our electoral system or voting system is not found in any other country in the world, a country that has a reasonable, sizable economy.
00:07:51.000I mean, we have only heard of a few other small countries that do use the electronic voting system as we do in Brazil, in addition to Venezuela itself.
00:08:01.000And these questions, of course, have been espoused by many more people in the populace at large.
00:08:07.000And we have actually driven to ensure transparency in the elections.
00:08:12.000But we have not really had the upper hand so far.
00:08:15.000We will be having elections, of course, in the very near future.
00:08:19.000And what makes us more confident about the ongoing elections is the fact that the armed forces in Brazil have been invited to join in electoral transparency.
00:08:30.000In the Electoral Assessment Committee, and they have performed a very active and relevant role.
00:08:36.000But the armed forces have told me that it is impossible to grant a seal of credibility or reliability to the voting system given the very many vulnerabilities or weaknesses that the system still features as it stands today.
00:08:52.000The upper electoral court, the superior electoral court in Brazil, has seven justices in it.
00:08:59.000And three of them are also members of the Supreme Court.
00:09:03.000And these people are appointed, politically appointed way back by the political parties, these justices.
00:09:11.000So, going back to your question, yes, Lula was arrested, he was in jail, he was sentenced, and he was serving his term in jail.
00:09:20.000And then, the Supreme Court as a whole, The Supreme Court justices as a whole decided to go back in time and reinterpret what we call arrest or imprisonment at the first instance, legal instance level.
00:09:36.000And the Supreme Court had determined that people who had been sentenced only at the second instance level would still be able to run for office.
00:09:44.000However, the Supreme Court decided on a majority basis that a person can only be arrested and put in jail if he or she is sentenced by a third legal instance.
00:09:55.000And that is what allowed Lula to be freed.
00:09:59.000We also have a law in Brazil called the Clean Slate Law, whereby candidates can only stand for office if they have been sentenced by a lower court.
00:10:08.000Not the Lula's case, because he had already been sentenced by a mid-level court, so he would technically not be able to run for office legally speaking.
00:10:20.000However, one of the justices in the Supreme Court, this justice, decided to declare the corruption case against Lula null and void.
00:10:30.000A case where he had already been sentenced at a third judiciary level, on a unanimous basis, given the evidence.
00:10:37.000And that justice simply said that the problem was the geographical jurisdiction.
00:10:42.000He should have been tried in Brazil, the federal capital, not in Curitiba, the state capital where he was sentenced.
00:10:48.000So he went ahead and quashed and cancelled his sentencing.
00:10:51.000So that meant that the case went back to the first judiciary instance.
00:10:56.000In Brazil, the Clean Slate Law does not cover people who are being tried or have only been sentenced at a first judiciary instance.
00:11:05.000That being the case, Lula da Silva gained the right to stand for office and take part in the elections because of this very, very subjective stance, taken by this Supreme Court justice who was appointed by a Workers' Party president in the past.
00:11:20.000We'll get to more with President Bolsonaro in just one moment first.
00:11:23.000With everything going on in the world right now, I think all of us could use a really good night's sleep.
00:11:28.000Well, this is why you need to check out Helix mattress.
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00:11:43.000If you're nervous about buying a mattress online, you don't have to be because Helix has a sleep quiz.
00:11:47.000It matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress.
00:11:50.000Because why would you buy a mattress made for somebody else?
00:11:53.000I was matched with the firm and yet breathable model because honestly, if the mattress is too soft, it hurts my back.
00:13:56.000Caixa, the savings bank, is one thing, but there's also the Federal Savings Bank's pension fund, so we're talking about more than 500 billion U.S.
00:14:04.000dollars altogether for the amount of money that was diverted and embezzled under the Lula and Dilma Rousseff administrations.
00:14:11.000So, this was tremendously strong in Brazil, the corruption, scandal investigations.
00:14:17.000So much so that the former president Rousseff's term in office was discontinued in the middle of her term in office as a result of an impeachment process.
00:14:29.000In the end of that process, Dilma was impeached from office.
00:14:32.000And again, another very subjective stance was taken.
00:14:37.000Because in Brazil, when one is impeached, they are not eligible to stand for office again for eight years.
00:14:46.000And in that case, the other Supreme Court justice, who actually led the case at the Supreme Court, entered into an agreement with the senators and allowed Dilma to remain eligible for a public office.
00:14:57.000Of course, I voiced a very compelling vote against that, of course, during the impeachment voting in Congress.
00:15:05.000I was pretty well known at the time, became even better known.
00:15:09.000And of course the press tremendously criticized me and I became even more well known in Brazil.
00:15:14.000And I had already decided to stand for office back in 2018, at that point in time.
00:15:21.000They did try to assassinate me and murder me on September 16th, before the election date.
00:15:48.000And I took office and set up a cabinet very much unlike all presidents who came before me.
00:15:54.000Because in the past, presidents would set up their cabinets and assign or appoint their ministers by accepting impositions given top-down by political parties to make sure the president would enjoy support in Congress.
00:16:12.000One third of which is made up by members of the military, and the other third made up by civilian professionals who were very keenly aware of their responsibilities and who were technically capable to carry out their tasks and work at the helm of their respective ministries and portfolios.
00:16:31.000In 2019 we had a very difficult year in that there was not a very good chemistry or dialogue going on, a very good working relationship between us and Congress.
00:16:43.000We got to the end of the year successfully.
00:16:46.000And in 2020, of course, we had COVID, the COVID-19 pandemic, which, of course, strongly hit the whole world.
00:16:53.0002021, of course, we had even more problems.
00:16:56.000Other issues such as, for example, water shortage of an unprecedented level in Brazil.
00:17:01.0002022, the war in Ukraine, together with, of course, inflation spiraling, going up all over the world.
00:17:07.000We were able to bring inflation under control by lowering the taxes on fuels.
00:17:12.000And we also, of course, made sure to cater to the needs of the have-nots by granting an emergency aid, socially-oriented benefit, to the tune of $120, covering 21 million families and households throughout Brazil.
00:17:27.000All, of course, was done within what we describe as fiscal responsibility.
00:17:31.000At this point in time, we have posted the third month in a row of negative inflation rate, of deflation.
00:17:38.000Of course, foodstuffs and other prices are going down.
00:17:42.000The labor market is doing pretty well, and 8%, a little more than 8%, is our current unemployment rate, or joblessness rate in Brazil.
00:17:53.000A good rate as compared to previous administrations.
00:17:58.000The economy is doing very well, and we have also lowered taxes that would otherwise apply to other products.
00:18:05.000Actually, one third of a tax called Tax on Industrialized Products, or IPI, covering 4,000 such products in Brazil.
00:18:21.000This so-called spending cap, we call it a ceiling.
00:18:25.000And Brazil is doing very well, actually.
00:18:27.000We are a world powerhouse when it comes to foodstuffs.
00:18:31.000We are a major supplier of foodstuffs to the world.
00:18:34.000And also, as proposed by us, and already in effect, Brazil, in the near future, will be a major exporter of clean energy, green hydrogen.
00:18:43.000The coastline of the Brazilian northeastern region, up north, In that region alone, the forecast potential indicates that we will be able to produce clean energy, the equivalent of 50 times more than the bi-national power plant between Brazil and Paraguay produces today.
00:19:07.000So, we have foodstuffs, we have energy, we have biodiversity, we have mineral resources available, and we are also endowed with a wonderful climate, wonderful climate conditions, arable lands that remain untouched, not yet used.
00:19:26.000And we do preserve two-thirds of our natural vegetation, which remains pristine, just as it was when we were discovered back in the 1500s.
00:19:34.000So we have this beautiful path ahead, a virtuous path in the future time horizon so that we can make progress.
00:19:42.000We used to be the 13th largest economy.
00:20:32.000How do you fight corruption in a state that's been so endemically For almost 40 years now, we have had no corruption case in Brazil.
00:20:45.000And I have always said, time and again, if corruption cases emerge and come to the fore, we will help investigate.
00:20:54.000Accusations and hearsay do crop up here and there, but they do not prosper or thrive because there has been no diversion of government funds anywhere.
00:21:08.000Well, because we have not accepted, say, top-down suggestions by political parties to be part and parcel of the administration.
00:21:17.000Whether you're talking about ministries, or portfolios, or state-owned companies, or state-owned banks, every cabinet minister or CEO of a state-owned bank, or a CEO of a company, they are the ones who are responsible for appointing all of their staff members.
00:21:34.000I, as president, do determine that they must not yield into political pressure or any suggestions to the effect of appointing people that they're not familiar with or know well.
00:21:47.000Take the Brazilian National Development Bank, for example.
00:21:50.000They would lend money to dictatorships around South America.
00:21:56.000There's this former federal representative where 10 million US dollars were found in his apartment.
00:22:03.000And that man happened to be a director, a key director at the Federal Savings Bank.
00:22:08.000And of course, that diverted money came from the bank.
00:22:12.000So we have fought corruption in Brazil.
00:22:15.000We don't talk about corruption anymore in Brazil.
00:22:17.000Political parties no longer pressure me to get positions in the government.
00:22:21.000So this is overcome and done away with.
00:22:24.000And because we have appointed technical professionals to work at the ministries, they have rolled up their sleeves and got down to work.
00:22:31.000Take a look at the Ministry of Mines and Energy just this past week.
00:22:34.000In the past, we would be unable to actually tap into lithium deposits in a specific region in Minas Gerais, known as River Valley, because of issues within the government circles.
00:22:48.000We've overcome all of that, and now we are in a position to explore the lithium deposits available in that state.
00:22:56.000Now, take the offshore wind energy project, for example.
00:23:01.000That has already been properly deregulated as well.
00:23:04.000And, before the end of the month, we will be resuming the construction of our third nuclear power plant, the so-called Angra III plant.
00:23:14.000Also, in the northeastern state of Serra, as a result of a decision made this year through a presidential decree and the ministerial order, we will be tapping into uranium deposits in the northeastern state of Serra, in a region known as the Santa Equiteria, the area that could refer to thousands or tens of things that are effort, tens of efforts that are currently on the way as a result of the government's initiatives.
00:23:43.000Efforts to remove the red tape and thousands of regulatory standards and norms that would certainly hamper the life of the business community.
00:23:52.000We put an end to all of those standards.
00:23:54.000Actually, 90% of those standards were undone.
00:23:57.000And we also established the law in 2019, in the first year of my administration, known as the Economic Freedom Law, the Economic Freedom Act.
00:24:07.000And at the end of the Lula da Silva administration, back in 2010, It would take you, as a business person, an average of about four months to open a company.
00:24:17.000Under my administration, it takes no more than a day to open a business, a new business.
00:24:23.000Furthermore, today, Brazil is the seventh most digitized country in the world.
00:24:30.000And all of that has encouraged entrepreneurship and led more companies to be open, and, of course, has expanded the free market.
00:24:40.000In the past, there would be these public examinations, competitive public examinations, that would ultimately bloat the government apparatus, whereas we have, of course, established that government or public examinations will only be carried out for what is absolutely necessary, such as, for example, the federal police, highway police service, and other required services.
00:25:07.000As we digitize the government services and as we stop conducting public competitive examinations for those services that can be carried out by a competitive private sector, measures have been taken and have explained the fact that the Brazilian economy was not hard hit with COVID in 2020.
00:25:31.000The world expected Brazil to decrease its economy by 10%, and we only saw a 4% decrease in the economy.
00:25:39.000Brazil is actually one of the countries that has seen the lowest economic decrease as a result of the COVID pandemic.
00:25:46.000And this reflects very positively to the good of the population, because the population has been able to keep their jobs today.
00:25:52.000In retrospect, we have established or created more than 5 million job posts in three and a half years.
00:25:59.000The informal labor market is very strong in Brazil.
00:26:02.000We're talking about those who work without formal working documents.
00:26:06.000And the labor market has gone back to normalcy levels, pre-pandemic normalcy levels, for the 15th week in a row.
00:26:13.000Inflation levels have been revised downward in Brazil.
00:26:17.000And also, week after week, our GDP, our Gross Domestic Product, has been revised upward.
00:26:27.000So this is a clear-cut signal of the fact that the economy is indeed recovering, and obviously not when we talk about services.
00:26:35.000It is also a sign of the fact that the population is working.
00:26:39.000And this is a country where everyone has an opportunity to work.
00:26:43.000The Workers' Party under the Lula administration, they always tried to get the population to live off and depend on the state.
00:26:55.000And I believe that if the former president, Rousseff, had not been impeached, Lula, or someone from the Workers' Party, would have been elected in 2018, and this country would become a Venezuela.
00:27:08.000About a year and a half ago, President Fernandez took office in Argentina.
00:27:13.000Friends with Lula and with other members of the so-called Sao Paulo Forum, founded in Brazil.
00:27:20.000Not too many decades ago, Argentina's GDP was similar to ours in Brazil.
00:27:25.000Whereas today, their GDP is way down, and 40% of the population is actually living at the poverty line.
00:27:33.000And in Brazil, the fact is that just a few weeks ago, the opponent candidate promised that the population would be able to eat sirloin and drink beer.
00:27:48.000By coincidence, The candidate at the time in Argentina also promised the Argentinian voters that they would be able to eat barbecue every weekend.
00:28:00.000And interestingly enough, their advertising would show the supermarket shelves, empty shelves, nothing to eat.
00:28:10.000There's not even bones available for people to eat, because the way Argentinian President Fernandes has interfered with the economy, by banning the country to export meat product, by taxing several agricultural products up to 33%.
00:28:27.000So the foreign export market, that measure has disencouraged cattle ranchers and farmers.
00:28:38.000So with less supply, you have more inflation and food shortage as a result.
00:28:43.000So that is precisely the problem facing Argentina these days.
00:28:47.000And of course, we do not want that to take place in our country.
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00:30:13.000So to what do you attribute the upswing of the radical left in South America?
00:30:17.000We've seen South American leftists take over in Chile, in Colombia, in Argentina.
00:30:23.000Obviously, we've seen the catastrophe in Venezuela and, you know, the fact that Lula is now pulling at somewhat close to parity with you, is demonstrative of a continuing strength of the far left in South America.
00:30:37.000Why is South America seemingly so susceptible to this sort of stuff after dramatic failure after dramatic failure on the continent?
00:30:45.000The pandemic has led the people, of course, to lose purchasing power in high inflation levels and prices.
00:30:56.000And a portion of the population is just unable to understand that this is indeed a worldwide phenomenon and issue.
00:31:04.000Take a look at Argentina, for example.
00:31:15.000Of course, we did experience hardship, but not as much.
00:31:19.000And the fact is that people voted for left-wing proposals, therefore blaming the incumbent president of today for the economic crisis, without considering the consequences or the effect on the economy, as well as the consequences that followed the stay-home policy.
00:32:02.000Other countries apparently did not have that chance.
00:32:06.000Currently, I do now have the chance to show and explain to the population what's actually going on, and what we went through, and also the reason why there's been some inflation.
00:32:16.000There was some inflation and price hikes in the recent past.
00:32:20.000In Brazil, one liter of gasoline costs about 4.50 in Brazilian real, about 0.8 US dollars, or 80 cents of one dollar.
00:32:32.000Food, or the price of foods that have always gone down in Brazil.
00:32:36.000One kilogram of poultry meat in Brazil, for example, costs more than 10 reals, about 2 US dollars by comparison.
00:32:43.000And I know that food prices in the US are much higher, many, many times higher than in Brazil.
00:32:49.000So, the Workers' Party, they spent 14 years in the federal administration and they ended up destroying Brazil's education foundation.
00:33:00.000They have also always advocated that students should be passed from grade automatically.
00:33:06.000And they also advocated that students should be given a benefit without any actual stimulus to study.
00:33:12.000You have the PISA, P-I-S-A, International Student Evaluation, or International Student Assessment, where 70 countries take part in that international assessment, and Brazil has ranked among the lowest-ranking countries in that examination, actually behind five countries in Latin America.
00:33:34.000But that's actually a positive investment for the Workers' Party, because the less the population gets information, And the less the population is able to actually understand what's actually going on, the easier it will be for the party to capture them and have them as allies.
00:33:50.000And they play really dirty pool in Brazil.
00:34:35.000Under the Workers' Party administration, it would take three years for a child to be taught to read and write.
00:34:40.000Under my administration, more than half of Brazilian municipalities, according to our teaching methodologies, it takes them about six months to learn to read and write.
00:34:50.000So we are focusing our interests at that foundation.
00:34:52.000We want our children to enjoy freedom, and we are teaching them to read and write.
00:34:59.000Yes, in their first year, in the first six months in the school setting.
00:35:03.000And this is one of our major efforts these days.
00:35:07.000For a substantial part of the Brazilian schooling system, they are all about ideology.
00:35:13.000They are trying to train activists and militants in the school setting.
00:35:16.000The best university in Brazil, the Sao Paulo University.
00:35:20.000USP actually ranks among the world's 200, 250 best universities worldwide.
00:35:26.000So, there's only one Brazilian university in the world that can be described as being among the world's best universities.
00:35:33.000I mean, the legacy, the legacy left by the Workers' Party in the educational system is really catastrophic.
00:35:40.000So one of the areas in which you've been widely demonized by the media has been with regard to social policy.
00:35:45.000You mentioned before your positions on abortion, on same-sex marriage.
00:35:51.000Brazil has been historically a very traditional country when it comes to things like marriage, when it comes to abortion.
00:35:57.000large percentage of the population of Brazil, obviously, is Catholic.
00:36:00.000What do you make of the push by the far left in countries like Brazil to confuse people with gender ideology or to liberalize efforts with regard to abortion?
00:36:12.000In 2010, the last year of the former Lula's administration, followed by Dilma Rousseff, also with the same party.
00:36:22.000Back in 2010, Lula managed to pass a bill of law in the lower house of parliament that would sentence priests or evangelical ministers up to three and a half years in jail if they declined or refused to actually conduct a ceremony, a same-sex ceremony, marriage or wedding ceremony.
00:36:45.000Obviously, enough evangelical pastors and priests would not agree with the proposal.
00:36:52.000And the issue, of course, found its way all the way up to the Supreme Court.
00:36:57.000And I joined the battle by advocating that priests should be entitled to not accept holding a religious ceremony if the wedding ceremony was not in line with the Bible.
00:37:08.000And that is why I was given the label of a homophobic politician.
00:37:13.000I was actually defending that priests and pastors should be given the right to decline or refuse if it was not in line with the Bible.
00:37:22.000And the LGBT population probably accounts for about 5% in Brazil.
00:37:28.000So that portion of society was cussed against me as a result of that stance I took.
00:37:33.000To give priests and pastors the freedom to not conduct certain religious ceremonies that were not in line with the Bible.
00:37:40.000So they actually take these stances that we had in the past to try to demonize us.
00:37:44.000In Brazil, they even say that I am against the Northeastern population.
00:37:49.000They account for about one-third of the Brazilian population.
00:37:53.000And I am even married to a daughter of a Northeastern man.
00:37:57.000So, all I do, they try to demonize me.
00:38:04.000And when I talk about farmers, they say that I am a destroyer of nature.
00:38:12.000When I advocate, for example, one's legitimate interests or criteria governing, for example, one's right to have a firearm at home, they accuse me of trying to arm the population to try to breed chaos in Brazil.
00:38:26.000And the vast majority of the mainstream media in Brazil, they're left-wing people.
00:38:32.000The survey and poll institutes themselves, they've been bought away by the left wing.
00:39:16.000The opponent candidate, Lula, has often said, time and again, he will regulate the media, that he will apply censorship to the media.
00:39:25.000But still, the left-wing mainstream media supports them.
00:39:29.000They always try to regulate the media.
00:39:31.000They tried it when they were in government.
00:39:34.000And they were positive that Dilma would come to the end of her term in office and a new President Lula possibly would succeed her in yet another administration.
00:39:42.000And with yet another term in office, they would be able to impose communism and socialism without actually having to shoot one single shot.
00:39:52.000They were not successful because they found along the way someone like me, someone who proved to be inflexible, uncompromising, no negotiating with the left wing in terms of support sought in Parliament.
00:40:05.000And this is the sense we have upheld so far.
00:40:07.000So much so that I have never actually received any Workers' Party representative from Congress to come and talk to me.
00:40:14.000And in the recent elections, we have proved very successful in Parliament in electing about two-thirds of the legislature in the lower house of Parliament.
00:40:24.000They're now center-right-wing legislature.
00:40:27.000So the pathway is open for us to move ahead and reform the state apparatus, to make it swifter, leaner, more nimble.
00:40:35.000And we have actually gained quite a few positions, if you will, in the overall ranking of the world's current largest GDP levels.
00:40:45.000Are you surprised by the amount of vitriol from the American media for you?
00:40:49.000Because the amount of hatred, obviously, in Brazilian media, that's predictable to a certain extent.
00:40:55.000In every country, there's a lot of domestic opposition in the media to whomever is the leader.
00:41:00.000But the New York Times, for example, seems to really despise you at a deep level.
00:41:05.000I remember a couple of years ago when they were fighting accusations that you were about to essentially pillage the Amazon.
00:41:13.000This was a major, it was made into a major global issue.
00:41:16.000When it came to your handling of COVID, the New York Times seemed to spend almost every day covering how you were handling COVID.
00:41:22.000What do you make of the attention paid to you by international media, not just domestic media?
00:41:27.000I think you have to take into account the current trade contacts and Brazil's stance and positioning in the world.
00:41:37.000Brazil is a major powerhouse in terms of commodities, things we produce and the exports of the world.
00:41:44.000But we do produce a great deal of products and we have a very high productivity level.
00:42:32.000I mean, the fire that is there is around the outskirts of the forest.
00:42:35.000It is there, no one denies that, and we are fighting that.
00:42:39.000So much so that if you compare, say, my four, roughly four years in government vis-Ã -vis the first years of Lula between 2011-2014, you will find that there was three times more deforestation under the first Lula administration than under my administration.
00:42:54.000So, we address these issues with a much greater sense of responsibility.
00:42:58.000Now, bear in mind that the Amazon region is as vast as Western Europe.
00:43:04.000The Yamamame Indigenous Reserve itself is twice as large, territorially speaking, as the state of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil.
00:43:14.000Now, we did try to pass this one piece of legislation.
00:43:17.000We will probably succeed in passing it in the next year.
00:43:20.000I'm talking about the Land Regularization Act, whereby, through satellite means, you would be able to detect deforestation or any fire or heat outbreak and therefore immediately know who the owner of that plot of land is.
00:43:34.000And you would even know who the person's tax ID number is.
00:43:38.000And you would therefore be able to tackle and descend on the relevant person, and of course, check whether or not the deforestation was irregular or not.
00:43:46.000We were unable to pass that bill of law because the left wing was against us.
00:43:51.000Because they knew that I would have a tool in my hands to actually reveal the truth about fire outbreaks in the Amazon region.
00:43:58.000And of course, following my elections, I'm sure this bill of law will definitely be passed in Congress, and we will be able to put an end in full stop to all the lies that circulate out there about deforestation and fire outbreaks in the Amazon region, which is just not true.
00:44:14.000Folks, our conversation will continue with questions about President Trump versus President Biden and how President Bolsonaro has dealt with both of them.