The late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk interviewed conservative former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro in February 2023 when Bolsonaro was visiting the United States.
The interview, the former president’s first major one after leaving office, saw Kirk and Bolsonaro converse on several conservative subjects, such as the importance of the right to bear arms and freedom of faith and speech, as well as the then-nascent judicial lawfare process in Brazil against the former president, which Kirk would later describe this year as a “warning to America on the power of judicial despotism.”
Bolsonaro visited the United States in early 2023 after leaving office following his narrow defeat in the highly controversial 2022 presidential election against radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro also delivered a speech at Turning Point USA’s “The Power of The People” February 2023 event.
The interview took place roughly a month after the January 8 riots in Brasília, an event that the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) accused Bolsonaro of orchestrating as part of a broader alleged “coup” plot to overturn the 2022 election. Bolsonaro was not present in Brazil when the riots took place.
Kirk asked Bolsonaro about separation of powers, particularly concerning the judiciary, and compared the situation in Brazil with that of the United States. Bolsonaro said that there is a “general consensus” that the STF had overreached on its responsibilities, but that there is no force in Brazil able to balance power and restrict the judiciary’s reach.
Since then, Bolsonaro and his family have become targets of a litany of judicial proceedings largely signed off on by Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Some of the lawfare actions against Bolsonaro include, but are not limited to, police raids, four indictments, a draconian house arrest, full-time police surveillance, and an eight-year ban from politics.
The major judicial action against Bolsonaro, the ongoing “coup” trial, sees the former president stand accused of allegedly conspiring with more than 30 other individuals to stage a “coup” and overturn the results of the 2022 election.
The trial entered a decisive phase this week, in which a five-STF Justice panel will vote to either convict or acquit Bolsonaro. At press time, de Moraes and STF Justice Flávio Dino voted to convict Bolsonaro this week, with Justice Luiz Fux voting to acquit the former president at the end of a lengthy 12-hour long court session on Wednesday.
STF Justice Cármen Lúcia is expected to cast her vote on Thursday. Justice Cristiano Zanin, who currently leads the STF, will cast his vote last. A simple 3-vote majority is required to convict Bolsonaro. If found guilty of all charges, Bolsonaro, who is 70 years old, can face up to 43 years in prison.
Charlie Kirk, in a March episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, discussed the ongoing situation against Bolsonaro in Brazil, which he described as a “gigantic Joe Biden-style lawfare crackdown” and compared it to the “attempted judicial coup” in the United States.
“As we’ve said many times on this program, the last 100 years, the power in America has largely concentrated in unelected bureaucracy and unelected judiciary. We can look to other countries to see where this goes,” Kirk said at the time.
Kirk said:
Now, Bolsonaro is going to be put on trial for supposedly plotting a coup. President Lula said today [March] that it’s Bolsonaro’s duty to, quote, ‘prove his innocence.’ It’s not innocent until proven guilty. It’s guilty until proven innocent. This is in the country of Brazil that we allegedly call an ally. If Russia were to do this, we would sanction them. If Brazil does it, why are we putting up with it? And the answer is we shouldn’t.
The U.S. State Department, Marco Rubio, and President Trump should issue tariffs and if necessary, sanctions on Brazil for this kind of reckless, immoral behavior. But even more than that, this is a warning sign. This is what judicial despotism looks like. This is the type of behavior that should have no place in the Western modern world. They are going to try to put Bolsonaro in prison to have him die in jail as a martyr.
In the months following Kirk’s March episode, the United States has taken significant actions against what President Donald Trump has described as a “witch hunt” against Jair Bolsonaro.
In July, President Donald Trump signed an executive order identifying Brazil as a national security threat to the United States, imposing a 50-percent tariff on Brazilian goods entering the U.S. At the same time, Alexandre de Moraes was targeted with U.S. human rights sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act. President Trump also sent a letter to Bolsonaro expressing his support that month.
Kirk died on Wednesday after being shot at an event at Utah Valley University. He was 31 years old. At press time, the shooter is still at large, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. Former President Jair Bolsonaro is legally unable to make public comments on social media or even use any kind of phone device as per the terms of the house arrest orders issued by de Moraes under penalty of imprisonment.
Bolsonaro’s son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, published a letter in Portuguese honoring Kirk on Thursday morning. Bolsonaro wrote, “When someone you know dies, you are somehow affected. But when they are murdered and leave behind a wife and two children the same age as yours, the emotion is greater and leads to automatic reflection.”
“He was a brilliant man, a person of courage, faith, and solid moral principles. He knew what he was doing and what he wanted. He was more than a political activist, as he spoke about issues far beyond politics,” the text read. “His success with question-and-answer videos at universities exposed the weakness of young people in left-wing dominated environments and ended up becoming an example for others to copy, even outside the U.S.”
“He created a movement, courses, books, ventures, and an annual event at which I had the opportunity to speak in 2022: the Student Action Summit (SAS) in Tampa, Florida. Charlie always left the door open when it came to Brazil,” he continued. “He did not deny that we Brazilians could take advantage of his work, of having built an empire connected with American youth, to discuss issues that we considered relevant.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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