Matt Gaetz says the same “playbook” is being used against Jair Bolsonaro as was used against Trump

Gaetz: “The playbook looks almost identical when the leading opposition candidate is gaining steam and threatening the incumbent in power”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the February 19, 2025, edition of OANN's The Matt Gaetz Show

MATT GAETZ (HOST): Former President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, known to the rest of the world as the "Trump of the tropics," has just been indicted by Brazil's government for, wait for it, trying to pull off a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election. Where have I heard this before? The charges say he led an insurrection to overthrow democracy, complete with a side dish of assassination plots against his rival, the current president of Brazil, Lula da Silva. It's like a James Bond script, but with worse hair and more palm trees.

Why'd they charge him? Because Bolsonaro couldn't handle losing fair and square, so he allegedly whipped up a posse of generals and cronies to storm the capital or castle or presidential palace. And the evidence for all of this is an 884-page police report, thicker than a Carnival float or anything you might see shaking on it. Guilty or not, this legal samba just is not one that Bolsonaro looks like he can dance his way out of. But let's hop skip across the equator to Uncle Sam's backyard where the Biden administration turned lawfare into an Olympic sport against Donald Trump.

If the similarities are amazing and noteworthy, both of these guys, Bolsonaro and Trump, slammed the elections as fraudulent and stolen, while their supporters protested at their respective capitals. Biden's DOJ threw every charge they could at Trump, classified documents, hush money, you name it. While Brazil's prosecutors are hitting Bolsonaro with coup plots and all kind of -- even like vaccine card fakery. The playbook looks almost identical when the leading opposition candidate is gaining steam and threatening the incumbent in power via the Democratic process. Just throw the guy in jail, or at least try to.