Echoing baseless fraud claims from the first round of voting in Brazil’s elections, Steve Bannon and other right-wing media personalities reacted to the news of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s loss by claiming there was electoral fraud and urging him not to concede. As of Tuesday morning, Bolsonaro has not spoken publicly or formally conceded, though Brazilian media reported that he’s expected to make a statement soon saying he won’t challenge the results.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday morning that Bolsonaro had not yet determined what he would do. His son, Flavio, told his followers on Twitter to “not give up on our Brazil.” Pro-Bolsonaro protests had spread through the country, partially or fully blocking at least 300 highways.
“He cannot concede, impossible,” Bannon said in a GETTR livestream on Sunday evening after the race had been called for Bolsonaro’s opponent, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “Screw Biden, screw the State Department. Screw the CIA. Fuck them.”
Bannon also posted on his GETTR page that “Lula stole this election” and reiterated that Bolsonaro hadn’t yet conceded.
Infowars host Alex Jones also denied that Bolsonaro lost the election, and then called for Brazil’s military to carry out a coup. Bolsonaro is “wildly popular, probably won by 20 points,” Jones said, adding that his options were “either escaping or he can go with the military and stand up to this communist takeover.”
Other right-wing media figures joined Bannon and Jones in pushing a false stolen election narrative, including conservative activist Matthew Tyrmand and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander.
Bannon and Tyrmand respond in real time on GETTR
On Sunday evening, Bannon and Tyrmand appeared on GETTR LIVE to discuss the results as they came in. Tyrmand repeatedly asserted that the vote totals had been altered, arguing that the trends were mathematically impossible. Tyrmand relied on an apparent misuse of “Benford’s Law,” a mathematical rule that conservatives also used to sow doubt about the 2020 election in the United States.
MATTHEW TYRMAND (ELECTION DENIAL ACTIVIST): I'm talking to my experts who penned this study that this dossier that we posted on CDM [Creative Destruction Media] Press after the polls closed about round one. They say it's the same – same exact curve, same exact numbers. It looks exactly the same. Same programming language, so to speak, that was executed in this round two as in round one. I mean, I was talking to Steve a couple hours ago and I said the two-thirds mark is where it crossed last time, and I bet it does this time. And it did. It was 67% when Lula took the lead and obviously never relinquished.
…
TYRMAND: How is it statistically possible that every single drop would result in the same trend lines, the exact same thing after an initial lead, after the first few percentage points of precincts show Bolsonaro up just like round one. Piece by piece, it gets nibbled away.
Tyrmand occasionally hedged his claims, stating that the supposed evidence he was presenting only called the results into question, and didn’t conclusively prove fraud.
Bannon then detailed the global conspiracy that purportedly stole the election from Bolsonaro.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): We had a great run in Latin America in a couple of years, but this is why the left is very focused. The resource – the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] and the globalists have focused on Latin America, given not just the great population down there and the hardworking people who –
MATTHEW TYRMAND: Resources.
BANNON: But also the natural resources. And there was no chance that they would ever allow the Amazon to be under Brazil and be under Bolsonaro. This is Macron, and that entire crowd have focused on the Amazon as part of their globalist sustainability thing. This is why it's vitally important for the people of Brazil that Bolsonaro – that the correct count get done here and Bolsonaro not concede, right, until a hand count is done precinct by precinct.
Bannon and Tyrmand continue on War Room the following morning
On Monday’s War Room, Bannon and Tyrmand continued to push the baseless allegation that Lula’s victory was mathematically impossible.
Bannon also claimed that Bolsonaro was being persecuted the same way Trump had been in the United States.
Ali Alexander on junk website Gateway Pundit
“Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander wrote a story for disinformation site the Gateway Pundit under the headline:
Alexander’s supposed evidence was a story in Foreign Policy that purportedly detailed U.S. government efforts to minimize the likelihood of a Bolsonaro coup. He then cited Tyrmand’s flawed statistical analysis to further bolster his argument, calling Lula’s victory “mathematically impossible.”
Like Jones, he also appeared to call for the military to intervene on Bolsonaro’s behalf.
Other rightwing figures weigh in
Trump adviser Roger Stone also took to Truth Social to argue the election had been stolen.
Revolver’s Darren Beattie praised Bannon’s response of “Screw Biden.”
Truth Social executive B.J. Lawson put Bolsonaro’s loss in scare quotes on his Truth Social post, writing, “It's always darkest before the dawn."
QAnon influencer Jordan Sather also posted on Truth Social that the Brazilian election was fraudulent and compared it to the U.S. election in 2020.
The head of the New York Young Republican Club argued that Bolsonaro should preemptively declare victory, the same advice Bannon gave Trump in 2020.
The NYYRC also pushed election denialism from its own Twitter handle, and in a separate tweet called for a military coup. Twitter deleted that tweet, as it violated the platform’s rules.
