President Trump said defeated presidential candidates under investigation in Brazil can stay in the United States “as long as they wish.”
Published November 1, 2026
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump’s administration did not help Brazilian presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost a runoff election to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, flee the country.
Bolsonaro arrived in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday. The next day, the US State Department announced that Bolsonaro and his family would be granted US visas following his defeat in the October 25 election, a move that bucked the trend of conservative electoral victories in Latin America.
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Bolsonaro is under investigation in Brazil on charges of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion, and before leaving the country, police ordered him to surrender his passport because he was deemed a flight risk.
“We didn’t promote anything,” Rubio told reporters Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia, where diplomats from 20 of the world’s largest economies gathered.
“We have received word that he has arrived in the United States. He previously held a visa and the president has made the decision to allow him to enter the country,” Rubio said.
He added that the US government was “not directly involved in any of the movements.”
Rubio also said he met Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday and plans to meet with Brazilian officials again at a foreign ministers’ meeting in France in November.
Separately, Trump, who had previously said Brazil’s election was “rigged,” expressed sympathy for Bolsonaro and said he may remain in the United States indefinitely.
“I think he was treated very shabbily, very shabbily, so he can stay here as long as he wants,” the president told reporters at his Florida mansion on Saturday.
Reuters reported that Bolsonaro entered the United States on humanitarian parole, which usually lasts one year.
President Trump’s comments suggested that relations between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest democracies may remain tense for some time.
After Bolsonaro’s defeat in the runoff, he fled Brazil to the United States via Argentina and Ecuador, with some US media reporting that the trip was arranged in part with the help of White House staffer Jason Miller.
Bolsonaro has refused to concede in Brazil’s general election, claiming without evidence that the results were fraudulent.
Since arriving in the United States, he has claimed to be Brazil’s true “leader” and said he left the country because he was a victim of “persecution.”
