 Welcome to American Issues, Take One. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. Today's title is Brazil Has Its January 6th Event, Trump's Election Denial Virus Spreads. Like fashion, we have trends in fashion. Some good, some absolutely horrible. Thinking of polyester bell bottoms in the 1970s. Well, political activities have trends too. And some far, far worse than polyester bell bottoms. And specifically I'm referring to election denials. And Donald Trump's election denials for his loss in 2020 is definitely spreading like a virus. I'll cite Kerry Lake from Arizona and her election denials that she didn't lose the election and she fought it to the bitter end. And then after the election, she fought it further. No chance of winning, but she felt compelled to fight it. And now we have ex-president Bolsonaro of Brazil who did exactly almost the same things as Donald Trump did. And that is, before the election took place, he said that it's a rigged election and that if he lost or if he didn't win, it would have been a rigged election. And as the events unfolded, lo and behold, it's a copycat event to January 6th. So we're here to discuss that. Starting off with Jay Fidel, my co-host. Welcome, Jay. Our special esteemed guest, Chuck Crumpton, and our ever, ever, ever lovely Cynthia Sinclair, our contributor. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Tim. Jay, I'd like to start with you and ask you to your estimation or opinion to what degree is this Brazil's uprising and attack on their national Congress, their Supreme Court and presidential offices? To what degree do you see similarities to our January 6th event? A large degree. There's some things that are obvious. For example, on 9-11, when the first plane crashed into the first tower, he said, oh my goodness, that's bad piloting. Gee whiz, wonder what happened there that fellow just wasn't watching. When the second plane crashed in, it was easy, that had to be coordinated attack. It becomes obvious, it becomes certain. And I think as we learned the details of what happened in Brasilia, we became certain that this was copycat. It reminds me of something, you guys may be too young for this, but in the 60s, there was a group that was making bombs in Brooklyn and they made a bomb, they didn't make it very well and it blew up the building in which they were making it. Okay, a few days later, there was a building in Chicago that went up the same way because people were doing copycat. They get it in the media, they copy it. And in this case, we know that Twitter was instrumental in the Brasilia insurrection and then it was fomenting unrest for a while. And lots of misinformation and disinformation which people bought. And so Twitter is the, what do you wanna call it, the engine of choice. The other thing I wanna mention in this regard is that we do a lot of shows overseas. And when we do them overseas and I talk to people who are very far away at all points of the earth, I always ask them, have you been watching 60 minutes? Have you been getting the news from the United States? Do you know what's going on with Trump and in Washington and Congress, the select committee and Mar-a-Lago and all that? They say, sure we do, silly question. They always do. What I'm telling you is American media reaches to all points of the earth in all languages, all cultures, everywhere. And so if you thought that the people in Brazil were not following what happened on January 6th, if you thought they were not following the select committee and all the aggravation in Congress, you can be sure they were following. So this is not only copycat, they're part of the fabric, the global fabric of what's going on. And so there's no issue in my mind whatsoever that Jair Bolsonaro was copying and the people who followed him were copying thoughtlessly and without regard to whatever democracy exists in Brazil. It was interestingly enough, it wasn't only the same effect, it was the same cause. Right, it shows that we've had before, we've used the term stochastic terrorism rhetoric. Now we don't follow resilience news like may follow ours. To what degree do you think there was dog whistles or was it bull horns that Bolsonaro was using to basically encourage and incite this attack? I don't speak Portuguese. So I don't know exactly what was happening on the ground, but I'll connect the dots on this and say it was a bull horn of social media. And furthermore, what I thought was interesting is that when Bolsonaro retired to Florida, we should discuss that event. He was heard to be reported to be meeting with members of the Trump retinue. So he's been in touch with Trump and Trump was friendly with him. If you just Google Trump and Bolsonaro, you find a lot of photographs of the two of them together admiring each other. Both autocrats both motivated the same way. And I suggest that not only was Bolsonaro watching what happened in January 6th, but he was in touch with members of the Trump coterie and getting even instructions on how you do this really well. Okay, thanks, Jay. Hey, Chuck, you've had a few days to let this settle into our consciousness. And what's your take on it? To what degree is this an exact copycat? Or I mean, to what degree is Trump's influence on ex-president Bolsonaro? What's your read on it? Hey, well, I think Jay's insights are good. They're well-founded. Hey, and you see close connections and communications between Bolsonaro and his people and Bannon and Ali Alexander and, you know, that troika of election deniers that were January 6th promoters. Hey, and of course, Bannon's still saying to Bolsonaro, go full speed ahead, go on the attack. There have been a couple of things. One is the timing, and that's a major difference here because Bolsonaro and his supporters actually waited to implement this until after the transfer of power had taken place. So it enabled Lulu to do a couple of things. One was to get in touch with and get strong support from international leaders, Biden, Macron and others. The second thing was to assemble and get strong unified support from his government leaders, his attorney general, his Supreme Court, Chief Justice and others. So one of the things that's gonna be interesting to see is that Bolsonaro's faction still has a very, very strong presence and voting sector in Brazil's Congress. So what happens with legislation down the line is gonna be interesting. Whether it'll change election results or the transfer of power, not much more likely than with Trump. Or similar to our Congress, gridlock. Well, and recognize one other thing with Trump. Trump not only initiated the rigged election claims before the election took place, but literally as soon as the election was being called by major networks, he started to put that out there in a concerted network of people as a fundraising device. That's always been Trump's main mechanism. Get control of the money, get control of the donors and use that for his political power and his base. And that's a distinction. Yeah, those are good observations. Yeah, thanks Chuck. Cynthia, like Trump, he started wildly pointing fingers on how it was possible to lose the election. And one of the directions he pointed into was the election machines and then another direction as far as fake news. Well, that's exactly what ex-president Bolsonaro has done. Any surprise to that? What other similarities did you note or have you witnessed on this attack in Brazil and on the House of Congress? Steve Bannon is the number one connection between Trump and Bolsonaro. And he's the number one connection behind some of these strategies that they use. He went on his war in his war room podcast just days after this all happened, praising them and defending what they said and defending what he believed was correct in the sense of there must have been fraud. We knew there was going to be fraud. It must be the voting machines. And if anyone was paying attention to what happened in the 2020 election, they can see the incredible similarities between both what happened in Brazil and what happened here in the United States. And then Bannon doesn't stop there. He's over in Hungary and he's over in Europe and he is stoking these same flames everywhere that he possibly can. And so I was just feeling more and more angry as I was reading more and more about Bannon's involvement in all of this and thinking about the fact that the judge is letting him walk around while he's waiting for the sentencing is letting him walk around, keep his podcast and keep spewing these lies and fomenting these insurrections, not just here, but everywhere around the world. So do you think Bannon may be in violation the Logan Act, which is to say a citizen interferes with the agenda of the United States of America or is this just a matter of freedom of speech first amendment? You know, where do we stop? You can't walk into a theater and cry fire and then have people die and you are responsible. So Bannon cried fire in a packed theater and I use that analogy that the packed theater was our Congress. He went in and he cried fire and people died. And yet he's just the only thing that he's been in trouble for at this moment is for not answering a subpoena. And I don't understand how it is that he's not being charged with more. And when, and I mean, I understand it's a big case and he likes to go slowly and all this stuff, but when is Merrick Garland gonna do something? Not just say he's doing something behind the scenes, when's he actually gonna open the door and let us see what is really happening? You know, Jay suggested that there may be communications or there could have been some communications between Bolsonaro and the Trump gang. If that were ever proven to be true, do you think there'd be any consequences from it? But we already know that it is. We know that Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, Bolsonaro, he was down there. He was up here, Bannon and Steve Miller and he lunched with all kinds of people while he was here. He went to South Dakota and met with all of the election deniers that are up there. And so they know that these things are happening. So it's not like we don't have proof already. We already have- I mean, we have the appearance that there may been some, you know, clandestine meeting, but we really don't know for a fact that that took place. What should we do about it? And should there be further investigation on that point? There should absolutely be more investigation. We do know that it took place. What we don't know is what they talked about. That's where we kind of have to just think about the circumstances and then guess what maybe they were talking about, especially since shortly after he left is when all this stuff started happening in Brazil. So the coincidental timing of it all speaks volumes, if you ask me. Okay, thank you, Cynthia. Hey, Jay, where does Trump's virus stop? When does that stop? I made a reference to fashion trends, bad ones, good ones. Eventually all trends in the fashion world, they stop. What about this political trend? Election denial, does that stop anytime soon? And if so, when? Short answer, there's no indication that it's stopping or will stop or that even an indictment and a conviction will stop it. But, you know, I'd like to visit one of the things you touched on earlier today. And that is, you know, why did Trump do that? We know he did this. Directly or indirectly, I think we can be really or relatively comfortable about that. Why? Why did he do this? And I think the answer is attention. Attention to Bolsonaro, having effect overseas, but also, you know, the big one, the distraction one, right? The master of distraction. You wanna have a reality show, you know, distract like a magician, you know, from one hand to the other so nobody knows what's going on. And I think, you know, he did this. He did it intentionally. Bannon did it intentionally on his behalf. And the reason was let's get the heat off Trump. Let's get the heat off January 6th. Let's show the world that this kind of stuff happens. And it is, you know, it is justified in other places. Maybe, just maybe it was justified here too. That's one element, you know, why did he do that? Why is he cavorting with Bolsonaro at all? The second thing is, you know, is there an effect here? Is there an effect on autocracy? Is there an effect on the liberal world order? Is there an effect on Putin's, you know, attack, the invasion into Ukraine? Is there an effect on world peace, world stability? And whether Trump intended it or not, and I suspect he did, just to make a distraction and to keep the heat off him, I think it has had an effect. I mean, look at the crowds in where Peru right now and people getting killed in the street and everybody, you know, doing a violent protest. There'll be other places in Latin America that will follow, I suspect. And if we look carefully at the news, we'll see other places in the world. It's like, you know, this event, and to the extent Trump is involved, Trump, and to the extent Trump was involved in January 6th, clearly it has a tendency of spreading through social media, through international communications and media of all kinds, and it destabilizes the world. I think, you know, he's had an effect that's worse than what we here on Think Tech have been talking about for the past five years. He has an international effect and it is destabilizing at least Brazil and indirectly maybe, you know, Peru, maybe other countries, Hither and Yon. We are in a bad time here. You know, this is not going to be a fair question, but it's going to be a tough question. And if you're a fragile democracy, either in Central America, South America, or Eastern Europe or wherever, how do you insulate yourself from this Trump election denial virus that's spreading around the world or seemingly spreading around the world? What do you do to prevent it from toppling your government during the next election? I want to make one other point about that. You know, so Bolsonaro goes to Florida. Why did he go to Florida? I mean, there was something about him going to a hospital there that sounds like poppycock to me. And he went to Florida, I think, to meet with the people in the Trump administration. But that's my view of it. What's obvious is that he makes himself deniable. You know, by going to Florida and by setting it up after power has transferred, he makes himself deniable. And, you know, it's harder to have a Trump-like investigation into his steps. How do we, and he may be the guy we're waiting for. He did get the federal authorities to arrest them, thousands of people. That day and the next day, you got to give him credit for that. Presumably, he's going to try them. Presumably, the courts are going to give him a trial. And he'll do better, actually, than the Department of Justice in this country, which hasn't done very well. And I agree with Cynthia, you know, it's that metronome back and forth every day. I wake up in the morning and I say, is this the day? Well, no, it's not the day. And Jack Smith, is this the day? No, it's not the day. When is the day? Here is no day. Watch. Keep waking up in the morning and asking yourself. The question is what does Lula do? Okay, if he succeeds in squashing Bolsonaro's uprising, we have some lessons to learn from him. And I'm not saying they're all sweet and lovely, they're not necessarily the kind of liberal things, progressive things that you would want. But if they work, we need to watch that. And countries around the world that are in jeopardy, democracies that are in jeopardy of the same process, they need to watch that. As for a formula that we can all agree on right now today on how to deal with an insurrection that comes from disgruntled people who take too much information out of Twitter and social media, I don't think there's an easy answer. I don't think there's a formula. I think we're still learning. Unfortunately, the lessons are hard. Chuck, is there gonna be any, how should I say, a ripple effect that comes back from Brazil? I mean, clearly the ripple, the rock was thrown in the lake, a calm lake, the ripple hit from Trump to Bolsonaro to Brazil. Is there gonna be a ripple that comes back to the United States as far as further encouragement for protest, not protest, but some kind of an insurrection against the government in some different form at some different time. Not necessarily in an election, but is this a virus that just keeps on giving? It's a great question. And Cynthia's and Jay's insights are spot on. And they tie directly back to the domestic essential element function that election denial serves for Trump and the Republicans. It's the center not only of their fundraising and their power brokering, but it's also the center of their voting rights strategies for gerrymandering, for voter restriction, for voter suppression, for changing the electoral process and accessibility to it, because they have now lost two straight, major national- Well, I guess that goes to the point of, why continue with the strategy of election denial when you just lost big on the midterms? Why, I get the fundraising concept and all that, but at some point is there a voice of reason that says, hey, election denial is not winning us elections and placing Republicans in these seats. I wanna add one thing to the pot for Chuck. And that is, we thought, we suspected that the insurrection would happen again. And in fact, in Brazil, they're talking about having another insurrection, same kind of thing. Insurrections don't go away after the day is done. Now they come back. And in the United States, the speculation is they come back in different form, they mutate, okay? And what we have now in Congress with the Republicans knocking, threatening to knock off social security, threatening to investigate the investigation, threatening to impeach clearly responsible members of government that's just madness, is madness that's going on in the house, say nothing of the debt ceiling. I suggest for Trump's answer, I mean, for Chuck's answer that the Trumpers, okay, are still engaged in an insurrection. It's not a violent insurrection. It's an insurrection in the house. These people are motivated by, these are the same people. The same people motivated by the same strange and crazy motivations under the doing it under, what do you wanna call it, color of law. So we still have a kind of mutated nuanced insurrection going on. What do you think, Chuck? No, I think that's exactly right. And we would not have the slim Republican majority in the house, were it not for the gerrymandering and the election law changes that were made, that made the difference in those votes. What they'll be able to do with it is open to question given the Senate and given the executive. But the Republicans J is spot on, the Republicans are gonna continue to attack on both fronts, violent insurrection with those supporters and the law changing anti-constitutional, anti-voting rights strategies that have worked to give them what power they do have. Okay, Cynthia, do you agree with Jay and Chuck that there's a ripple effect that's coming back or never left the United States thanks to Donald Trump and his acolytes? Do you agree that there's gonna be some forms of, I don't wanna use the word insurrection, but some form of undermining of the rule of law or and or the constitution that takes place in this country in the near future, far future in some fashion and form. What's your opinion? I wanna use the word insurrection. And it's happening inside out, you know? It was happening from the outside in before and now it's happening from the inside out. And the very same people that are under investigation for that very insurrection are now asking to be on the committee that will investigate the investigation. So they will have access to all of the materials and evidence and all of that. That isn't, it's such a conflict, a clear conflict of interest that it is absolutely outrageous to even think that it's happening. I couldn't watch anymore. I had to turn off the news yesterday because I was so upset at this. I feel like that every day. I'm screaming at the television and I realized, just turn it off. Take a break, open a walk, you know? I want to go back to Brazil for a minute because I have a quote that came out from Bolsonaro in September just before the election in October, right? And he says, the patience of the people has run out. I want to tell those who want to make me unelectable into Brazil that only God removes me from power. There are three options for me, jail, death or victory. And I'm telling the scoundrels, I will never be imprisoned. Now, who does that sound like? Almost, word for word. That thing that we heard when he came out and he said, I am ordained by God when Trump came out and said, God's the one who, you know, I'm his, what was it is, I'm his missionary, no, it was, and God's chosen one, that's what it was. And so here we are again, Bolsonaro's using the same terms, the same coincidence of that again is not, you can't say that it's not there. And we know that Bannon, once again, is the guy who instigated that to come and he's the one who suggested that he talk that way, Trump, and then now we find out that he also was the one that was advising Bolsonaro. And we also know that in this same month, Don Jr. was down with a televised message to Brazil and the people that were in Bolsonaro's camp. And this is all happening just before the election. So there's no doubt that it wasn't just Bannon or Stephen Miller or one of the, or Jason Miller, but it could have also been the Trump family. And we already know that if the Trump family is doing this, then it is because Trump approved it. But you know what? The communications between them are gonna be much harder to establish. Yeah. Because it's everybody's in there tight. You can start an investigation into this lots of luck. Nobody's gonna tell you anything. Well, Cynthia, you know, if Trump is God's chosen one, then God's chosen one will soon be indicted. And I guess that leads me to the question is what's in store for Bolsonaro when he leaves Florida and returns back to Brazil? Jay pinpointed, and I think Chuck pinpointed the fact that they handled this insurrection far differently than the United, our department of justice. My God, there was 209 people rested that day. And then the next day, 1,000 people were picked up. All have been released except for 527. But they clearly have handled this insurrection far, far faster and more strident than we have. In what way will Bolsonaro be treated differently than the laissez-faire treatment that Donald Trump has received thus far? The police said that they have detained a total of some 1,500 people and have released around 600, but they were all elderly or mothers with children and unhoused people, among others for humanitarian reasons. Now, talk about a difference between the two. What was there maybe 200 that were arrested? I don't even think there were that many that were arrested the day of the American insurrection. And we're still only up to like 600 people that have been arrested. A few that have been charged, mostly given these light sentences, right? That's the part I don't understand either is why they're being given these, five months, six months of probation and no jail time. And even the head guys, well, we do go at the crowd boy guys. I mean, the crowd boy guys, they're getting multiple years of insurrection. Yeah, 10 years and more. And so that part is different, but we have to see how it shakes out in the courts for down there as opposed to up here. But the immediate, it was my first reaction as I was watching it. There were just lines of people on the ground with their hands behind their backs. And I thought, boy, we sure didn't see that here, did we? Okay, so how does that translate to how both honoros gonna be treated when he returns? Well, there's lots of talk that I've found anyway about. Looking at an assumption that he's going to return. That's true, I am. That is up to Joe Biden in the immigration service. They could let him stay in Florida for a long time and operate remotely and do lots of damage. Or they could force him out, force him back. And that's a choice that Bolsonaro would like to have control over. But ultimately it's Joe Biden. And I think that choice is gonna have a huge effect on the answer to your question. Any bets, Jay? No, no pizza bets, but any bets, whether or not Biden says it's time to go because I don't wanna harbor a Trump wannabe. Well, I think it will, bad optics. If Biden lets him stay in the country, it looks like he's supporting him in some way. Absolutely. If he sends him back, then it'll be a crisis test of Brazil's democracy and Lula's power. Yeah. Hey, Chuck, what do you think? How Bolsonaro gonna be treated? Does he go back? Does he claim that he wants to stay in the United States longer and how do we respond? Or how does the Biden administration respond to that? Well, they already have. Right from the beginning, Anthony Blinken was saying, he's got 30 days to give us a legally justifiable reason to stay, other than that, without that, he's gone. So I agree with Jay. There's no reason to keep him here. Well, what if Bolsonaro says, hey, I can't get a fair trial? They're gonna overtly charge me for something I wasn't involved with and I won't be able to get a fair trial. Therefore, I'm claiming refugee status. No, that might be treated as a good reason. They've already linked him through social media, haven't they? They've already linked him through some of his social media posts to fomenting this insurrection. I agree with Chuck in the sense that it's so easy for Bolsonaro to concoct a murder threat, you know, a death threat, so easy to make himself a victim and seeking sanctuary in this country. So I guess at the end of the day, this is a public opinion question. Just how can he present himself to advance whatever he wants, to advance the notion he's, yeah, okay, I don't have a good reason. I'll have to go back or I have a good reason. They'll kill me if I go back. And can you please give me sanctuary? Actually apply for it. I have a question because I have seen a lot of, sorry to just jump in, but I've seen all these reports of the ex-patriots and people that are on vacation here in America going to where he is in Kissimmee, Florida and wanting, you know, autographs and whatnot from him, lots and lots of them. Will that have an effect on whether or not he's allowed to stay? Because there's so many people that want him to stay. Does that even enter into the process? Well, that raises a very interesting question because those people are probably part of Trump's base. You know, they're right-wing conservatives, they're lawless and they could make a big stinking. And who benefits by that? Trump. Yeah. You know, we've run out of time so I'm going to go to Chuck with his last thoughts. I think Jay and Cynthia have summed it up pretty well here. There are far more urgent pressing issues on our plate. Bolsonaro doesn't need to be one of them. All of the things that he could now argue might be reasons for him to stay are things that could have been anticipated and probably were present before he left. He made a choice, he should live with a choice. Okay, thank you, Chuck. Cynthia? I want to see him indicted. I want to see him arrested. I want to see him sent back to Brazil. And then I want to see Trump indicted and arrested and thrown in jail. But in the same way that Bolsonaro made that quote I read about him never going to jail. And I'm afraid that we won't ever, no matter what happens with Bolsonaro and or Trump that indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, neither one of them are going to go to jail because they will run before they get a chance to get put in jail. Okay, thank you, Cynthia. Jay, you get the last word. I'm not optimistic about retribution for Trump or even proceedings that will stop him from his quote campaign end quote. The idea that Allen Weissenberg got to what? What did he get five months in jail? And he'll get for 15 years of crime and he'll probably wind up getting out of there in three months, 90 days. You could count them real quick, 90 days for all of that. That was not a success, I'm sorry. And Fannie Willis, I thought that Fannie Willis had a real grand jury in panel already. Now come to find that it was only a grand jury to make a report and she has to start a second grand jury. I don't know if that's the law in Georgia or it's her discretion as prosecutor but it doesn't make me feel like things are moving as fast as I had hoped in Georgia for an open and shut case with his crime reported and repeated. So I'm not all that confident about anything happening soon in Georgia either. And then going back to the metronome, we all said, hey, you've got to do something before the Democratic majority ends in Congress. If you don't do it before things will derail whatever the select committee decided and recommended. And of course they didn't do anything and it was very nice. They gave us a report at the last business day of the year. But the fact is the Department of Justice and Jack Smith are still doing the metronome every morning and it isn't happening. The public confidence has got to be waning on that. I know mine is, I don't think the Department of Justice is doing its job here. It hasn't and it isn't and thus I'm not confident it will do it in the future. This is really bad in terms of the way people, not only in this country, but around the world perceive American democracy, American rule of law, American justice. All right. You know, if I had to choose between bad political trends and specifically trends of elections and now that attempt to weaken a legitimate elections in fragile democracies or fashion trends, I'd like to pick bad polyester bell bottoms. And with that, I'd like to thank my guests, special esteemed guest Chuck Crumpton, our contributor Cynthia Lee Sinclair and my co-host Jay Fidel. Thank you one and all for coming today and sharing your opinions and thoughts. Tim Appichell, your host for American Issues Take One. Won't you join us next week? Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.