Fox News personality Tucker Carlson used the "rigged election" defense once again to back antidemocratic protests in Brazil that hit a fever pitch after supporters of the previous leader, Jair Bolsonaro, attacked the Supreme Court of Brazil, the National Congress of Brazil and the Planalto Presidential Palace in the Praça dos Três Poderes in Brasília, the South American country's capital.
The current President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was not in Brasilia at the time of the attack, which took place just a week after his inauguration. His administration confirmed more than 1,000 people were arrested for participating in the attempt to reinstall Bolsonaro, who was in Orlando, Florida when it took place.
On his program, Carlson amplified bogus election fraud claims, saying Da Silva had only beaten Bolsonaro due “to what was very clearly a rigged election" and said millions in Brazil "know that their democracy has been hijacked, possibly forever.”
You can hear what Carlson said in the video below.
Carlson said:
"Thanks to what was very clearly a rigged election, a convicted criminal named Lula da Silva is now the president of the most important country in South America."
"Millions of people in Brazil know exactly what happened. They know that their democracy has been hijacked, possibly forever. But there's not much they can do about that."
"Lula may be a criminal—in fact, he is—but he has the full support of the Biden administration and the Chinese government. So yesterday, in frustration, a group of Brazilian protesters stormed their legislature."
"Why?"
Many have condemned Carlson's remarks as well as Fox News for airing the segment.
Carlson—who has been criticized for repeating former Republican President Donald Trump's Big Lie about the integrity of the 2020 general election—came under fire in November for calling Bolsonaro's defeat in Brazil's recent presidential election into question.
Carlson initially acknowledged Bolsonaro's loss, saying the far-right firebrand was “narrowly defeated by his far-left, convicted criminal opponent, Lula da Silva.” However, he later pivoted, claiming “the election is still ongoing” and “there are questions" even though that was patently false.
Lula defeated Bolsonaro in the second round of the contest, winning 50.9 percent of the votes to Bolsonaro's 49.1 percent, the narrowest margin of any Brazilian presidential election.
Among Brazil's democratically elected Presidents, Lula became the first to secure a third term and received the highest popular vote. At the same time, Bolsonaro's defeat made him the first sitting President to lose a bid for a second term since a 1997 constitutional amendment allowing incumbent Presidents to seek consecutive re-election.
