Celebration on the streets of Sao Paulo and a sense of relief,
they predicted a tight race and it was a nail biter to the very end.
>> I feel really relieved not only for the Brazilian people, but for
the whole planet, for the amazon, for the democracy, for the human rights.
>> So we are very happy.
>> Leftists in Brazil are certainly celebrating following
the ouster of right wing authoritarian president Jair Bolsonaro,
the so called Trump of Brazil and
the election of leftist former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.
He was elected to replace Bolsonaro,
meaning that he gets to serve as president second time around.
And this is after he was made a political prisoner by Lula De Silva
conspiring with a judge in brazil in the last presidential election.
Now this was the runoff election.
So they had the first round that indicated that neither one of them had the majority
necessary to win outright.
So they went off to the run offs and Lula da Silva luckily did win.
Now he won 50.90% of the votes versus Bolsonaro's
49.10% with 99.98% of the vote counted by Sunday night.
It was the first time an incumbent president failed to win re-election in
the 34 years of Brazil's modern democracy.
So that's really a testament to how unpopular Bolsonaro really was for
a number of different reasons,
his handling of COCID happened to be one of them.
They had upward of 700,000 people who died from the virus under his leadership.
What he did in decimating the amazon rainforest also infuriated people.
Lula's victory was in part thanks to a broad coalition though,
from communist to centrist, something unheard of here in the United States as
the Brazilian electorate sought stability after Bolsonaro's volatile term,
which was marked by clashes with the courts,
and a pandemic that killed more people than anywhere but the United States.
So we're still number one.
>> Yes, thank goodness.
We finally are on top again.
What a sad statistic to be able to be on top of.
I mean, it is so interesting, the historians so hopeful in many ways for
the world that we can at least see a chance to come back from the brink of
these authoritarian far right, very dangerous to the future of
the world into democracies everywhere kind of governments.
I mean, the parallels between Bolsonaro and Trump.
He's not just called that for jokes cuz that's the best his hair has ever
looked off and it is combed down Trump's style.
But it's just in so many parallels the number of accusations that he was able to
avoid because he classified documents for up to 100 years while he was president.
The fact that he was able to squelch a lot of calls for investigations into him
because he appointed his own attorney general in brazil, which always in
the past had been done just by the federal prosecutors, choosing their top chief.
And he just changed that president and was able to change all of that.
The fact that he was able to mismanage COVID so much like Trump did here and
lead to the number two number of deaths for any country on the planet.
The fact that he, like you said,
is decimating has been decimating the future of our planet just straight up.
There's an incredible system in place in brazil that gives
alerts when trees are burned down and he just chose to wholesale ignore.
And finally, there's a chance and it shows you how weird the world is and
how weird things are in Brazil that while it does seem that
largely Lula might have been framed.
And still a former president who was in prison sentenced to 20 plus years and
only served about two years of them before having the conviction thrown out
because the judge was apparently colluding with the prosecutors, but
that's their best hope.
And many people across brazil like thank goodness we have somebody back who's not
great also, but at least better on the on the issues and maybe not.
>> Yeah, I mean Lula da Silva was the leader who was essentially responsible for
children in brazil being lifted out of poverty,
millions of Brazilians being lifted out of poverty.
I mean he has and had an economic plan that really spoke to indigenous
people in brazil, people who had been living in poverty in brazil.
He actually decreased deforestation considerably under his first stint
as president of brazil and he's planning on doing the same in his new stint.
Although it's going to be a lot more difficult because the government in brazil
is much more divided today than it was during his previous presidency.
And I want to get to that in just a moment.
But before we finished kind of summing up Bolsonaro's leadership,
if you can call it that.
One of the other similarities that Bolsonaro has with Donald Trump is
election denialism.
As far as I've read so far, he has yet to concede.
There are members of his right wing party who have essentially noted that Lula has
in fact won and Bolsonaro has in fact lost.
But bolsonaro himself as we talk about the talk about the story at this very moment,
is yet to concede.
Now without any evidence by the way, the president meaning Bolsonaro has criticized
the nation's electronic voting machines sound familiar, as rife with fraud and
suggested he might not accept loss much like former President Donald Trump.
Many of his supporters vowed to take to the streets at his command.
And that just shows that there are some pretty devastating similarities,
not only with Bolsonaro and Trump, but the right wing electorate in
brazil with the right wing electorate here in the United States.
>> And if I can travel on that really quickly.
One maybe notable difference we're seeing just in the first 24 hours since this,
that also is maybe hopeful for a way that the planet can start rejecting these
election deniers and these truth deniers that are a complete cancer on the world.
I mean, there is no way to have any sense of order,
no matter where you are politically, if we don't honor results,
if we don't honor facts that come out of elections.
And it seems as though even though they were talking a big game,
a lot of his supporters on the right in brazil leading up to the election,
as soon as it was called, most of the detractors,
even those who were questioning the truth leading up to it and
saying they might not accept the results, are saying they're accepting the results.
And so it's looking like Bolsonaro may not have the support to even contest it,
which hopefully will lead to him conceding in the days to come.
>> Yeah. And
it's concerning that the election was as close as it was.
Now, politicians in America should take note of Lula's campaign message,
particularly democratic politicians who wait till the final hour if
that to dive into discussions about what they would do for the economy.
How they're different from republicans.
Lula's stump speech revolved around expanding services for the poor, which he
did deliver on in his first term as president, including more social welfare
payments, a higher minimum wage and programs to feed and house more people.
To pay for it, he said he would raise taxes on the rich, but
also simply increase government spending.
And I wanted to go to this final video of Lula during his acceptance speech.
Let's take the lower third down for this thought.
Let's watch.
[FOREIGN]
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> [FOREIGN]
>> Now, he has the right policy ideas
at the same time, he's referencing how difficult it will be to accomplish some of
those goals considering the divisive nature of politics in brazil very similar.
There are parallels to what we're seeing here in the United States as well.
For instance, while Bolsonaro has been out-stired important to remind you
that his party, members of his right wing party hold the most seats in Congress and
a powerful centrist bloc controls both the house and the Senate.
So that is likely going to be an obstacle for Lula da Silva.
But he did accomplish some pretty incredible things under his leadership
before including reducing deforestation under his watch by 80%.
And what Bolsonaro had done to the rainforest,
the amazon rainforest under his leadership was pretty devastating.
As much as 17% of the rainforest gone,
Bolsonaro gutted regulations pertaining to illegal logging.
He did all sorts of things that essentially loosened environmental
protections for the amazon rainforest.
So in terms of anyone living in another country who thinks like why do
I care about the elections in brazil?
You should care because the leader of brazil has a pretty significant say over
what happens to the amazon rainforest at a time when the climate emergency is really
front and center.
We're already seeing the consequences of the Climate emergency and
the impact that right wing authoritarian leaders have had on the amazon rainforest.
>> Absolutely.
And how it more directly affects us here.
I mean, most of our rainwater comes from the amazon rainforest.
Obviously, it travels over and
the amount of trees in brazil are twice the amount of trees in all of America.
Not to mention it's the ecosystem for so many of the essential species that create
the ecosystem that makes life on earth possible.
You never know the consequences when more and more species die out,
as opposed to when the rain forest was on fire and
burning at an insane rate during Bolsonaro's term.
He turned down aid from the international community.
Macron in France put together not even a huge package, but
it was like $15 million to try to help stop it.
And he turned it down and
said, it's because they want to own a piece of the rainforest from themselves.
It's literally just aid during a crisis time.
No one said, if you take this, we get a little swath of land as well.
It was just to help planet earth.
And this person would rather stir up conspiracy theories about colonialism from
a country France isn't taking anybody over, okay?
France is not doing anything to take anybody's land.
They're just trying to be arrogant and
maybe help stop the rainforest being on fire.
And this is the kind of person that you have.
And instead it's so nice to see somebody like Lula that comes in and
even in that clip that we just showed says that or the quote that you read,
I think rather that says that we will be raising taxes on the rich, but
also we'll just be spending more.
And we always see here in America we don't have the money to help our social programs
to expand spending there when needed to help people in need.
But when we need any unlimited amount of defense spending,
we just generate the money out of nowhere.
It's about time we generate some money out of nowhere to hide help the common person
in this world that needs it much more than defense Contractors.
>> No 100%, I mean, there was already tens of billions of dollars in
military aid sent over to Ukraine with no debate, right?
>> Over $50 billion dollars.
>> Already, already.
And their Congress is considering yet another $50
billion dollar military aid package to Ukraine in January.
So we'll see where it goes with that money.
But I don't bring that up to engage in a debate about whether or
not we should help Ukraine.
I bring that up because clearly when our government wants to spend the money,
they have no problem doing it.
There's no debate.
There's no talk about a senate legislative filibuster.
No, we gotta funnel taxpayer money over to military contractors.
>> And every single time, every time that there's an expense for
something that makes rich people richer, it's never brought up.
And every time it's to help people in need, the right says, I would love,
in theory to help, but we just don't have the money.
We don't have the money.
We're giving it all elsewhere to our rich friends.
That's the hypocrisy we're living under in this world.
>> Exactly.