{"id":134144,"date":"2019-05-27T12:01:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T11:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=134144"},"modified":"2019-06-04T09:45:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T08:45:01","slug":"watch-interview-with-brazils-ex-president-lula-from-prison-discussing-global-threats-neoliberalism-bolsonaro-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/05\/watch-interview-with-brazils-ex-president-lula-from-prison-discussing-global-threats-neoliberalism-bolsonaro-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Interview with Brazil\u2019s Ex-President Lula from Prison, Discussing Global Threats, Neoliberalism, Bolsonaro, and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

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22 May 2019 – <\/em>Among the planet\u2019s significant political figures,\u00a0no one is quite like\u00a0Lula. Born into extreme poverty, illiterate until the age of 10,\u00a0forced to quit\u00a0school at the age of 12 to work as a shoe shiner, losing a finger at his factory job at 19, and then becoming a labor activist, union leader, and founder of a political party devoted to a defense of\u00a0laborers (the Workers\u2019 Party, or PT), Lula has always been, in all respects, the exact opposite of the rich, dynastic, oligarch-loyal, aristocratic\u00a0prototype that has\u00a0traditionally wielded power in\u00a0Brazil.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what makes Lula\u2019s rise to power, and his incomparable success once he obtained it, so extraordinary. And that\u2019s what, to this very day, makes him so worth listening to regarding the world\u2019s most complex and pressing political questions: As the\u00a0ascension of right-wing nationalism and populism at times seems unstoppable, Lula is one of the world\u2019s very few\u00a0political figures of the last several decades able to figure out how to win national elections in a large country based on left-wing populism in the best sense of that term.<\/p>\n

So unlikely was Lula\u2019s rise to power that he ran for president, and lost, three times before finally being elected by an overwhelming margin in 2002 and then reelected by an even larger margin in 2006. His eight-year presidency, despite being marred by corruption scandals long endemic to Brazilian politics, was a stunning testament to the power of politics to improve the lives of people and transform a country: implementation of innovative social programs<\/a> that lifted millions\u00a0of Brazilians\u00a0out of poverty and\u00a0created opportunities and hope for a huge segment of the population which, for generations, had none.<\/p>\n

So bold and charismatic was Lula\u2019s leadership that it not only transformed the lives of millions but also the perception of Brazil itself: both domestically and globally. Brazil was awarded the World Cup and then became the first South American country to host the Olympics. Tens of millions of Brazilians who resigned themselves to eternal, inescapable deprivation began to believe for the first time that a brighter future was possible. When Obama\u00a0saw him at the G-20 summit in 2008,\u00a0he\u00a0anointed<\/a> Lula \u201cmy man,\u201d adding: \u201cHe\u2019s the most popular politician on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama was right: By the time he left office in 2010, Lula had an approval rating of 86 percent. And in a highly patriarchal country, he chose as his successor a little-known PT minister, Dilma Rousseff, who\u00a0in 2010 was, with Lula\u2019s vehement support, comfortably elected as the country\u2019s first female president\u00a0and then\u00a0reelected in 2014. Somehow, a pro-worker leftist party founded by an impoverished labor leader became the dominant political force \u2014 winning four consecutive national elections and restoring Brazil\u2019s belief in itself \u2014 in an oil-rich country long notorious for its extreme inequality of all types.<\/p>\n

But then, just as quickly and dramatically as Lula built these successes, everything fell apart: for Lula, for Dilma, for PT and, most tragically, for Brazil. During Dilma\u2019s presidency, the economy collapsed, millions returned to unemployment and poverty, an epidemic of street violence emerged, Dilma\u2019s approval ratings\u00a0dropped to\u00a0near single-digits, she was impeached during her second term under highly dubious circumstances, and a routine\u00a0investigation of money laundering through a car wash in the mid-sized Brazilian town of Curitiba quickly exploded into a\u00a0massive corruption scandal. Aptly referred to as Operation Car Wash, or Lava Jato, it implicated and sent to prison Brazil\u2019s richest and most powerful figures, including the billionaire funders of multiple parties, PT\u2019s leaders, and,\u00a0finally in March 2018, Lula himself.<\/p>\n

Lula\u2019s criminal conviction on corruption charges last year came under highly suspicious circumstances. All year long, polls showed him as the clear front-runner for the 2018 presidential race. After anti-PT forces finally succeeded with Dilma\u2019s impeachment in doing what they spent 16 years\u00a0trying with futility to accomplish at the\u00a0ballot box \u2014 removing PT from power \u2014 it seemed that Lula\u2019s 2018 return to presidency was virtually inevitable and that only one instrument existed for preventing\u00a0it: quickly convicting him of a\u00a0felony which, under Brazilian law, would\u00a0render him ineligible to run as a candidate.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s precisely what happened. While Lula faced a variety of allegations of large-scale, complex corruption schemes, Lava Jato prosecutors instead\u00a0selected one of the smallest and simplest cases against him that had long been regarded as trivial but which enabled a conviction to be quickly obtained:\u00a0accusations that he received a modest-sized \u201ctriplex\u201d in exchange for helping a construction company secure contracts. The judge who presided over the Lava Jato investigations and became heralded as an anti-corruption\u00a0icon<\/a> around the world, S\u00e9rgio Moro, quickly convicted Lula<\/a> and sentenced him to almost 10 years in prison, a conviction upheld in early 2018<\/a>\u00a0by an appeals court that mildly increased Lula\u2019s prison term.<\/p>\n

Ever since, Lula has been held in a makeshift prison cell inside a Federal Police building in Curitiba, thanks to a 6-5 Supreme Court ruling that he could be imprisoned<\/a> pending his final appeal. An electoral court then barred Lula\u2019s candidacy for president. Barring Lula from running as a candidate paved the way for\u00a0the election of the far-right extremist Jair Bolsonaro, who defeated Lula\u2019s handpicked replacement\u00a0from PT, the little-known and charisma-challenged former mayor of S\u00e3o Paulo, Fernando Haddad, by a wide margin.<\/p>\n

In a transaction that even anti-Lula crusaders found highly distasteful, the judge who found Lula guilty and cleared the path for Bolsonaro\u2019s ascension to the presidency \u2014 Judge Moro \u2014\u00a0thereafter accepted a position in Bolsonaro\u2019s government<\/a>\u00a0that has been\u00a0described as a \u201cSuper Justice Minister\u201d: a newly designed position consolidating powers under Moro that had previously been dispersed among various agencies. It rendered\u00a0Judge Moro \u2014 less than a year after putting Lula in prison and thus removing Bolsonaro\u2019s key obstacle \u2014 one of the most powerful men in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Beyond his imprisonment, Lula has recently suffered a series of deep personal and political tragedies. In 2017, his wife of 43 years, Marisa, suddenly died of a stroke<\/a> at the age of 66. In January, his brother died of cancer<\/a>, but judicial permission to attend his funeral arrived too late. In March of this year,\u00a0Lula\u2019s 7-year-old grandson died of meningitis<\/a>. All the while, Lula has had to watch the growth and progress of Brazil to which he has devoted his entire life being reversed, unraveled, and trampled upon by a far-right extremist spouting hatred for an endless number of marginalized groups, while\u00a0Bolsonaro\u2019s Chicago-trained, Pinochet-admiring economics minister<\/a> prepares to sell off and privatize national resources, including those in the Amazon, to the highest bidder.<\/p>\n

Throughout the election of 2018, the Intercept Brazil, and me personally, relentlessly sought judicial permission to interview Lula from prison, as did several other outlets. Even as the country\u2019s most violent and dangerous criminals were permitted to be interviewed in prison<\/a>,\u00a0our requests to interview Lula were systematically denied by a judiciary clearly petrified of\u00a0Lula\u2019s singular ability to persuade the electorate. Only after the election was complete and Bolsonaro\u2019s victory secure did the Brazilian judiciary suddenly begin granting authorizations for him to be interviewed. We were granted one hour with him alone, and I traveled to Curitiba last week to conduct the interview.<\/p>\n

Despite the intense personal tragedies and harsh political defeats he has suffered, I encountered a Lula\u00a0who\u00a0was remarkably similar to the one I interviewed in 2016<\/a>: intense, energetic, charismatic, combative, and highly insightful. I confronted him with numerous criticisms about his own conduct and that of his party \u2014 including policies\u00a0many believed helped lead the way to Bolsonaro\u2019s victory<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but also used the opportunity to ask one of the only world leaders with a proven track record of winning with real leftist politics what the international left must do if it has any chance of stopping the inexorably growing nationalistic right-wing movement sweeping the democratic world.<\/p>\n

We present the\u00a0entire one-hour interview with very few edits so that the full vibrancy of our exchange can be seen. It was a sweeping discussion with one of the world\u2019s most incisive political minds, involving a wide range of issues, some of which were about Bolsonaro and Brazil, but most of which were about the\u00a0dangers the planet faces from collective threats and global political changes around the world. The\u00a0complete transcript is below.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=93MgeyNqc_k<\/p>\n

Read the full interview:<\/h3>\n

Glenn Greenwald: Good morning, Mr. President. It\u2019s good to see you again, and thank you for the interview. This interview is for a Brazilian audience as well as for an international audience. Everyone outside Brazil already knows that you think you\u2019ve been unjustly sentenced, a point we\u2019ll get back to in a moment. But many people have also been asking me how you\u2019ve been treated in prison, and you\u2019ve said many times that the authorities here are humane and professional. Is this still the case?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva: I don\u2019t know what humanitarian treatment in a prison means. I\u2019m locked up, and I\u2019m in solitary confinement \u2014 and it really is solitary, because most of the time I\u2019m completely alone. I meet with my lawyers, and that\u2019s it. And with my family once a week. I don\u2019t know whether to consider this decent. What allows me to endure all of this without loathing it, and with a brighter outlook, is knowing that there are millions and millions of Brazilians living in freedom who, even so, are in worse conditions than I am. At least I have the opportunity to have lunch, to have dinner, you know?<\/p>\n

But Brazil is the country you ran for eight years, and there are plenty of people in jail. How do you compare your treatment here to the treatment common prisoners receive in common prisons?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take the Brazilians who have to live in stilt houses above swamps: They\u2019re living as second-class citizens. A citizen who has to live in a single 9-square-meter room, who has to have lunch, dinner, has to cook, make love, go to the bathroom, and do everything within those 9 square meters \u2014 they\u2019re not living any better than I am here. That\u2019s why I\u2019m less concerned about my own situation and more concerned with that of millions of people \u2026<\/p>\n

I get it, but are you being abused or tortured? That\u2019s what people want to know.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, listen: We\u2019ve been fighting for many years to end torture. These days, torture has more sophisticated forms. It\u2019s based on plea bargaining, on the thousands of lies told simultaneously over and over, and people imprisoned for two or three years until they say what the prosecutor or police commissioner wants to hear. I could cite the example of [Antonio] Palocci\u2019s plea bargain, where he\u2019s lying in the most unbelievable manner. Or take Leo [Pinheiro], for example, who\u2019s in prison and lying through his teeth to get out. The secret is to talk about Lula. This has been going on for five years. \u00a0You know that I\u2019m here even though neither the judge, the prosecutor, or the Federal Police commissioner who launched the investigation have any proof against me. They know that the apartment isn\u2019t mine, they know that the ranch isn\u2019t mine, but they keep up these lies \u2026<\/p>\n

So are they mistreating people in order to elicit accusations against others?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, and it continues to this day. I joke with my lawyers that I\u2019d like to plea bargain and denounce S\u00e9rgio Moro, denounce the TRF4 [the 4th Regional Federal Court], to be a whistleblower against the commissioner that launched that deceitful investigation, I\u2019d like to denounce [Deltan] Dallagnol. I\u2019d love to, you know, but nobody would accept my plea bargain. Let\u2019s see if you arrange for my whistleblowing to see the light of day, Glenn, because I need to make something clear. There\u2019s this phrase by an English philosopher, that the curse of the first lie you tell is that you spend the rest of your life telling more lies to justify the first one. Do you remember when I went for my first deposition with Moro? I said to his face, \u201cYou\u2019re condemned to condemn me,\u201d given the huge amount of lies they\u2019ve told, you know, in this agreement between Operation Car Wash and the Brazilian press<\/a>. Because Operation Car Wash would be nothing without press coverage. But it\u2019s a collusion between media, television, radio, and newspapers, where the press editors get the material before even the lawyers do. Before the defense lawyers received any news, the press already had. Thanks to this collusion, you\u2019ve woven a gigantic lie. Every day, every hour I keep wondering, will GloboNews ever use the Jornal Nacional to say, \u201cWe made a mistake with Lula\u2019s case\u201d?<\/p>\n

In the <\/strong>interview<\/strong><\/a> that we did in 2016, you harshly criticized Operation Car Wash, insisting that it was selective and an operation dedicated to destroying PT \u2014 as you said just now. But Operation Car Wash went on to imprison Eduardo Cunha, who led the <\/strong>impeachment process against Dilma<\/strong><\/a>, and also Michel Temer, who became president after Dilma\u2019s impeachment (though he\u2019s been released, he then went back, was released again, but at least he\u2019s on trial), and also S\u00e9rgio Cabral, the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. And now they\u2019re aggressively going after A\u00e9cio Neves, Dilma\u2019s center-right opponent in 2014. After all this, can you really say that Operation Car Wash was launched to destroy PT?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glenn, let me tell you something: Operation Car Wash has been selective most of the time it\u2019s been running. You\u2019re a foreign journalist, so you can investigate impartially. Check out who made donations to PSDB [the Brazilian Social Democracy Party], and who made donations to PT. How much did PSDB receive, and how much did PT receive? And what about other parties? Conduct a thorough study, an impartial one, and figure out why only [Jo\u00e3o] Vaccari of PT was sentenced for campaign finances. What about the other treasurers from the other parties??<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t A\u00e9cio on trial?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But A\u00e9cio isn\u2019t a campaign treasurer. I\u2019m talking about campaign finances to show you that there\u2019s been a focus on going after PT from the outset. Why? Because they needed to take out PT from the government, and since they didn\u2019t manage to do so over the course of nearly four elections, they needed to create clear ways to stir up hatred of PT. Historically in Brazil, and I think the whole world over, this kind of loathing increases once you accuse someone of corruption.<\/p>\n

Listen, let me be crystal clear: I think if someone steals, they should go to jail, whether they\u2019re PT or not, whether they\u2019re Catholic or evangelical, you know? You steal, you go to jail. If the sentence has been pronounced, if the facts have been established, and if it\u2019s been proven that you stole, you must go to jail. This is the kind of lawful state we want to establish. Now, I want to challenge the people who imprisioned me to show the world a single shred of evidence against me. I\u2019m not asking for anything else.<\/p>\n

But do you agree that Operation Car Wash is going after other politicians, including your opponents from the center-right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glenn, Operation Car Wash has been gradually changing into a political operation that benefits whoever participates in it. I\u2019ll give you a tip-off here, a bit of whistleblowing that you can help investigate: Not long ago, we found out that there was an agreement made by the U.S. Department of Justice with what Dallagnol was handling for the Federal Public Ministry, for Operation Car Wash, to the tune of $600 million.<\/p>\n

From the U.S.?<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the U.S. And afterwards, it surfaced that S\u00e9rgio Moro had authorized another agreement to the tune of $1.6 billion from Odebrecht, here in Brazil. We also know that there are other monetary agreements funding Operation Car Wash, but right now we don\u2019t have access to the figures. In fact, PT is demanding that the leader of the House of Representatives get the Federal Savings Bank involved to help us find out who\u2019s made agreements with Operation Car Wash. Because in fact, any time someone makes an agreement like this involving hundreds of millions of dollars, they\u2019re trying to build a political machine, they\u2019re setting up a racket..<\/p>\n

All right, well, I promise you that we\u2019re working on these issues, and investigating these \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just let me finish, Glenn, I don\u2019t want to stop in the middle of saying \u2026<\/p>\n

Go ahead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The only thing I really want, the only thing, is that my case be judged objectively. I don\u2019t want anything else. I want the judges at some point to care about having hard evidence, either from the side of the prosecution or from the defendants. Did you know I had 73 witnesses but that Dallagnol didn\u2019t even show up to the hearings? He made up that deceitful PowerPoint presentation and then vanished. The only person he talks to is Miriam Leit\u00e3o from Rede Globo news, and once in a while, he grants an interview. He\u2019s probably going around now on lecture tours to make money. Anyway, I don\u2019t want his beliefs to be the last word. I want evidence to be the last word. If he can prove that I own what he says I own, that shouldn\u2019t cost him anything. In the meantime, I\u2019ve been completely demoralized in the face of public opinion.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t be able to settle this right now. You\u2019ve got your accusations, but it\u2019s a question of evidence \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen: When PT denounced the foundation that was set up with these funds, Dallagnol went to Caixa Economica [federal bank] to try sign a document and take over the foundation. Let\u2019s put it this way: I\u2019m being convicted without any foundation, without any dollars behind me, without any funds, and he\u2019s walking free, trying to seize $2.5 billion. We denounced him to the National Justice Council. But who\u2019s going to judge the case? The Council, which consists of, you know who? 8 members of the Federal Public Ministry. So what do you think the result will be? Is there any doubt?<\/p>\n

During the 2018 elections, we spent a year trying to get an interview with you, like other journalists, but nobody was authorized to interview you, even though some of the most violent people behind bars in the country, including Nem, the head drug trafficker in Rio de Janeiro, were interviewed in prison. But now that the elections are over and Bolsonaro has won, all of a sudden the courts are allowing some journalists, like Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo, El Pa\u00eds, and Kennedy Alencar for the BBC to interview you. How would you explain this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have no doubt, Glenn, that everything that\u2019s happened in connection with Operation Car Wash has been to prevent Lula from running for president. Nowadays I\u2019m certain of this, the same way that I\u2019m certain that the U.S. Department of Justice is behind this, and the same way that I\u2019m certain \u2026<\/p>\n

Is there evidence of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sorry?<\/p>\n

Is there evidence? Is there proof?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can only have strong beliefs, you know, about everything. The same way that I\u2019m absolutely certain that it\u2019s interest in the petroleum resources of Brazil\u2019s pre-salt layer that\u2019s behind everything that\u2019s happened to me and Dilma. Namely, the coup against Dilma, my imprisonment, the accusations. You see, Operation Car Wash could have had an important role in punishing the businessmen \u2014 if they\u2019re guilty \u2014 and allowing the businesses to keep on creating jobs, paying salaries. They could have kept Petrobras from going broke, from being sold, from being divvied up as it is. Anyway, I\u2019m very glad that today they\u2019ve allowed this interview, and I\u2019m grateful to you all for demanding this in the courts<\/a>. I should have been allowed to have interviews before the elections.<\/p>\n

Well, we requested the interview a long time ago, before the elections.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know. And I\u2019m grateful that you requested one. But it was denied. First, Minister of the Supreme Court [Ricardo] Lewandowski allowed it<\/a>, but then it was vetoed by [Dias] Toffoli<\/a>, I think, as president of the Supreme Court. I knew that it was a game they were playing, and that the game was: Let\u2019s prevent Lula from competing in the elections. Why? Because the worst nightmare of the Brazilian elite is Lula returning to the presidency. But why exactly, if they made so much money during my presidency?<\/p>\n

Yes, and isn\u2019t it true, for example, that bank profits went through the roof during your presidency?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if they went through the roof, but they grew significantly.<\/p>\n

They did, didn\u2019t they?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the truth is that the poor ascended a whole rung on the economic ladder. And as the lower classes began to go to university, to go out to the theater, to go out to eat at restaurants, to travel more by airplane, this began to bother part of the elite.<\/p>\n

But the upper classes also saw great improvements during your presidency. So why would this upper class, who profited so much while you were president, be so against your return to office?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s because this isn\u2019t just an economic question; it\u2019s a cultural issue. One has to remember that it was only a little over a hundred years ago that slavery was legally abolished, and that it continues in the minds of many. That\u2019s why the greatest victims of police violence are black, that\u2019s why those who are black earn 50 percent less than those who are white, and that\u2019s why black women earn less than white women. That\u2019s why those who are black have a lower average level of schooling than those who are white. Why? Because slavery is still prevalent deep within people\u2019s consciousness. It\u2019s a harsh thing to say, but it\u2019s true. And this doesn\u2019t change overnight. If we think about civil rights in the U.S., things began to change in the 1960s, but how many people had to die, including Martin Luther King Jr., in order to guarantee that black people would be treated with dignity? Really, I think deep down, it\u2019s not an economic question. It\u2019s set of a cultural, political, and sociological issues.<\/p>\n

Well, let\u2019s talk about some cultural issues. Your government was responsible, for example, for approving the changes in drug laws in 2006, which were a great advance in differentiating between drug users and drug traffickers. But as a result of these laws, the number of incarcerations rose, specifically of black people and of women. Looking back, how would you judge the policies of your government, given that it led to increase incarcerations during your presidency and Dilma\u2019s too?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me tell you something. Between 2003 and 2014, we rolled out a range of strategies and approved as many laws as possible to improve the system of policing in this country, to reduce the rate of corruption, and to put more criminals behind bars. If you look at anything that\u2019s functioning well in the Ministry of Justice, you\u2019ll realize that these advances were put in place specifically during PT\u2019s government. Exactly then. Now listen, we didn\u2019t manage to solve the problems of public safety in Brazil, but we did create the mechanisms, including more civil ones, for the police to act more professionally, and we equipped the Federal Police, we set up the National Police, all with the objective of getting things done. And all of this is going down the drain now. I remember when Minister of Justice Tarso Genro approved PRONASCI, the National Program for Public Safety, which was a great initative for reducing crime and helping out young adults. It no longer exists. I think what\u2019s really needed is a series of public policies to help resolve the overall situation. What are two extremely important components?<\/p>\n

First, take PAC, the Growth Acceleration Program. You mentioned Nem earlier, and I remember in one of his interviews with a magazine<\/a>, I think it was Isto\u00e9, he said that the president who got the most criminals off the streets was Lula, because during PAC, they lost 20 percent of their crooks who instead went to go work in PAC programs. In other words, if you want to reduce violence, you shouldn\u2019t hand out weapons; you should hand out education, jobs, salaries, opportunities, and hope.<\/p>\n

But did this actually work during your presidency? Because for many people, the problem was that violence and crime increased during the PT government. These problems were exactly what Bolsonaro exploited in his rhetoric. Isn\u2019t it true that the problems of \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

It did not increase during the PT government. During the PT government, we enacted the greatest policies of social mobility in 500 years of Brazilian history.<\/p>\n

But did crime increase or decrease?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It decreased, definitely. It decreased. And there\u2019s something one has to take into account when discussing this in the context of Brazil. One thing is being serious and keeping records of every case that happens, and another thing is just making the crime rate look lower by hiding the crimes. What we emphasized was greater transparency, with the goal of avoiding the same old trend of poor people being the victims. When you can guarantee that a young person will have a job, you know, then he won\u2019t have to steal someone\u2019s cellphone or tennis shoes. He won\u2019t have to kill someone to steal their jacket. This is a no-brainer. When you give a young person the opportunity to dream, to dream \u201cI can have a job, I can go to a technical school, I can go to university,\u201d then this young person will grab and hold on to such opportunities..<\/p>\n

I see what you mean.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What kinds of dreams do they have today?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to turn to discussing the political situation here in Brazil and its relation to international politics, because the whole world is interested in understanding Brazil after Bolsonaro took power. In 2015 in the U.S., it was unthinkable that Trump would win the elections, and nobody believed it would happen, but he\u2019s now president. The same thing in the U.K. with Brexit. The same thing in Europe with nationalist and far-right parties. A year ago in Brazil, nobody believed that Bolsonaro would be elected. It was unthinkable, but he won. Now I know that you believe that Bolsonaro\u2019s victory was due to causes and factors unique to Brazil, like the media\u2019s attack on PT, but right now, can we see Bolsonaro\u2019s victory as part of a larger global pattern in the democratic world of far-right parties overturning center-left parties?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, as part of the democratic process in the whole word, shifts and alternations in power are a normal pattern. This holds in the U.S., it holds in Germany, and it holds in Brazil. In one election, the right wins, in the next one the left wins, and in the next one \u2026<\/p>\n

But the right-wing is gaining ground in many countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, look: We had a very extraordinary period in Latin America. The period with the most growth, the greatest distribution of wealth, and of the most social inclusion in Latin America happened between 2000 and 2014 with the elections of [Cristina] Kirchner, [Ricardo] Lagos, Lula, Evo Morales, [Hugo] Chavez, Rafael Correa \u2014 it was a golden age for Latin America. We\u2019re now in a far-right phase that\u2019s failing in absurd ways. Macri is a disaster for Argentina, and he was supposed to be the answer. There\u2019s this book \u2026<\/p>\n

Why is this happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s this book by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto, with the following phrase: \u201cIn times of terror, we choose monsters to protect us.\u201d Now, when you create hatred within a society<\/a>, when you create anti-political sentiment, when you take away any kind of hope in people or in existing institutions, then, well, anything goes. I know that Americans thought Trump had no chance. So why did he end up winning the elections? It wasn\u2019t with Putin\u2019s help, as everyone\u2019s saying. It was because of the lies of fake news, just like here in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Was that the only reason?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the only reason, it was because of unemployment, because of despair, and because of this discourse of the shrinking the government, which is always a concern in the air. You know what I mean? When Reagan and Thatcher created so-called globalization, the fad in the 1980s was to say that being modern was being globalized, and opening the economy up to the whole world and letting capital transit freely \u2014 even though people could not freely transit. Now that globalization has caused problems for developed countries, above all for the U.S., Trump found an easy line of discourse: \u201cThe U.S. is for Americans, and jobs are for Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s not very well known that many people who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 then went on to vote for Trump in 2016. In Brazil, the same thing happened: Many people who voted for you and then for Dilma went on to vote for Bolsonaro. How do you explain this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glenn, let me share something with you: I know Hillary Clinton pretty well. It would have been very easy to find someone more popular than her. She\u2019s not an appealing personality. Trump\u2019s victory was due to him having the right kind of discourse for the white blue-collar workers, you know, from the automobile industry, who were unemployed. He promised the obvious: more jobs for Americans. He promised to fight the Chinese to create more jobs, and this won him the elections. Now it\u2019s obviously possible that many people who voted for Obama voted for Trump, just like many people who voted for Lula voted for Bolsonaro, especially since Lula wasn\u2019t running for office. If Obama was running, I don\u2019t know if Trump would have won. Concretely, I don\u2019t know if, even in spite of the extraordinary performance by [Fernando] Haddad \u2014 if I were to have run, would the people have voted, would PT voters have elected Bolsonaro? Concretely \u2026<\/p>\n

I know people who voted for you, and then for Dilma, and then for Bolsonaro.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, maybe if I\u2019d been a candidate, these people wouldn\u2019t have voted for Bolsonaro. Glenn, since you\u2019re a journalist, you know what\u2019s happened in Brazil. First of all, Brazil has always had politics based on a monolithic \u201cconventional wisdom.\u201d Fernando Henrique Cardoso had eight years of conventional wisdown that was favorable to him, I had eight years of conventional wisdom that was against me, and Dilma had favorable conventional wisdom when the press tried to create a rift between Dilma and Lula, but then that didn\u2019t work out, so they were against her. And as soon as the idea of impeachment came about, they were 100 percent against her.<\/p>\n

There was this climate of hatred running throughout society, trying to blame PT for all of the misfortunes of Brazil, but when the elections were on the horizon, there wasn\u2019t a single viable right-wing candidate. (I mean, normal right-wing, because as for Bolsonaro, he\u2019s comparable to Nero standing by while Rome burned down to the ground.) And in fact, Bolsonaro\u2019s been in office for five months and we\u2019ve never heard the words \u201cgrowth,\u201d \u201cdevelopment,\u201d \u201cinvestment,\u201d \u201cjob creation,\u201d \u201cdistribution of wealth\u201d \u2014 these words have simply vanished from the dictionary. The only thing you see is everyone making this gun gesture with their fingers all the time, and this is actually the same shape they used before to make an \u201cL\u201d for Lula. I guess Bolsonaro borrowed this gesture from when it was used in my presidential campaigns. The point is, our country is abandoned, everyone only speaks of budget cuts and welfare reform, and promising the society\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

Abandoned by who? I mean, during your interview with El Pa\u00eds, you chalked up the rise of the global right to the failures of neoliberalism. I\u2019d like to know more about this issue of neoliberalism failing here in Brazil and internationally as well. What\u2019s the relation between the population suffering and their sudden embrace of far-right leaders like Bolsonaro and others throughout the democratic world?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Neoliberalism, as it arose during the era of globalization, is losing ground everywhere. It\u2019s not just losing ground to the left, but also to the right, as it lost to Hitler and to Mussolini. At the same time, we\u2019ve had two recent examples, in Spain and Portugal, of the left coming back during the elections. And even in Germany, where Angela Merkel is a very strong politician, if she hadn\u2019t formed coalitions with the Social Democrats, she wouldn\u2019t be in power.<\/p>\n

But even there, the far-right is growing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know, it\u2019s growing the whole world over, and I think it\u2019s a warning call for the left, yes. But the right-wing won\u2019t \u2026 you can be sure that after Bolsonaro and Macri, Cristina [Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner] will win the next elections. You can be certain that if Evo Morales runs for president, he\u2019ll win in Bolivia, and that the same will happen in many countries.<\/p>\n

I hope that Americans will have the good sense to prevent another term of Trump as president, because he\u2019s not just a problem for the U.S., he\u2019s a problem for the whole world. He has to learn that given the importance of the U.S. on the international stage, he can\u2019t make impulsive decisions without reflecting on their global consequences. He can\u2019t threaten to wage war on everyone, threatening to attack all the time. Enough is enough! We\u2019ve had enough lies, like in Vietnam, like the lies about Iraq, like the lies about Libya.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to stop this, you know, the world needs peace, the world needs schools, the world needs more books, and not more weapons, the world needs jobs. Sometimes I get really upset thinking about the G20 meeting we had in London, the first one that Obama went to, where we reached important decisions to deal with the 2008 financial crisis, and one of the suggestions was that richer nations, in accord with the reduction in their internal consumption, could enable financial means for poorer countries to develop and to modernize, to buy newer machines, to have greater access to technology and science. But this didn\u2019t happen, and protectionism is back.<\/p>\n

But Mr. President, it\u2019s a common criticism, for PT as well, that while you and Dilma have a reputation and a political past as left-wing, your form of government was neoliberal, and there are a number of examples which we\u2019ve already discussed, like the<\/strong> increase in bank profits<\/strong><\/a> during your presidency. The same way that the Democratic Party in the U.S. is financed by Wall Street and Silicon Valley, PT was financed by the richest corporations in Brazil, such as <\/strong>Odebrecht<\/strong><\/a>, OAS, JBS, and lots of banks. You implemented a welfare reform in 2004, and Dilma implemented austerity in 2014 and went ahead with the hydroelectric dam in Belo Monte that environmental and indigenous activists were against, and you implemented tax cuts for the rich. If you think that Bolsonaro\u2019s victory was due to the failures caused by neoliberalism, don\u2019t you think that PT built it up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, no, no. No, Glenn, I won\u2019t answer your question before responding to all of these things you\u2019ve just said about PT and my government.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want you to respond to those \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to keep in mind that \u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a common criticism, that\u2019s why I\u2019m asking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

During my presidency, I never said that my government was socialist. First of all, when you win an election, you have to figure out the relations between the forces that you\u2019ll have on your side in order to implement political decisions. It\u2019s important to remember, Glenn, that when I was elected president of the republic with a parliament of 513 representatives, I had 91 representatives from my party. Collor and Bolsonaro, they had 50. He\u2019s going to need, much more than I did, to construct allegiances with forces who will be amenable to approving what he wants. There\u2019s no point in his talking of \u201cold politics\u201d when he\u2019s the old politician himself! He\u2019s been in office for 28 years. He\u2019s the old politician, and I\u2019m the new one. I had only been a representative for four years, and I didn\u2019t want to be a representative anymore, and he was one for 28 years. So enough of this \u201cold politics\u201d nonsense. And if you want to run a country, you have to work with what you have!<\/p>\n

I ran the country that I happened to be in. I wasn\u2019t running France, or Germany or the U.S., I was running Brazil. And when I arrived in office, there were 54 million people dying of hunger, who couldn\u2019t afford to eat breakfast, and I pledged that by the end of my term, every person in Brazilian would have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I didn\u2019t get the chance to go to college, but I made it my duty to see to it that, since I didn\u2019t have the chance go to college, the workers would. For all these reasons, even though I\u2019m the only president without a college degree, I wouldn\u2019t switch places with many people who have one, you know? I\u2019m the president who sent the highest number of students to university, who opened the most public universities, who launched the most technical schools in the history of the country, who had the largest policies of distribution of wealth, who raised the minimum wage the most, and who helped the most in settling the landless.<\/p>\n

So how do you explain the suffering that people felt that brought Bolsonaro to office, after 14 years of PT in power?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why did I do all those things that I just mentioned? Because I understand that if one wants to solve the problems of Brazil, we have to use the word \u201cpeople.\u201d We have to look at people and see human beings instead of just seeing numbers or debt figures. Do you want to reduce the government debt in Brazil? Grow the economy. Do you want to reduce the welfare debt? Create jobs. Why was the welfare at a surplus in 2014? Because we created 20 million jobs with regularized work contracts, and because we legally approved six million individual microenterprises. We got the economy functioning. Just talking about cuts, cuts, cuts won\u2019t hack it; one needs to speak of growth, development, and look toward people, not toward the banks. Come on, what kind of growth can our country expect with a president who goes around saluting the American flag?<\/p>\n

No, what I\u2019m trying to ask is why you blame the rise of Bolsonaro and other extremists on neoliberalist ideologies. I\u2019m trying to understand the difference in how you ran the country, how Dilma ran the country, and those ideologies. What differences do you see?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glenn, when we started this interview, I said clearly that PT\u2019s biggest problems come not from its errors, but its successes. Every time that a president tries to enact socially-minded policies in Latin America, they\u2019re eventually ousted. The elite in Brazil and in other countries don\u2019t accept economic development policies that contain social inclusion. PT managed to enact \u2014 and this is according to the U.N., not me \u2014 the greatest changes in social inclusion in the history of this country. It\u2019s important to remember that during our mandate, it was the only time in history that the poor had a higher rate of economic upturn than the rich. The rich made gains too, but the poor at an even greater percentage. It was the only time in history, and this bothered people. You should have heard it in the Rio de Janeiro airport, in the S\u00e3o Paulo airport, when people said, \u201cThis airport is beginning to look like a bus station, with these poor people all around, people who have never taken a plane in their life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, so why is there so much anger in this country, leading to Bolsonaro\u2019s election?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well now, you\u2019re giving me the opportunity to explain to the Brazilian people what happened. Let\u2019s take the case of Bolsonaro. He had 39 percent of the total votes, not of those who went to the polls, but 39 percent of the total.<\/p>\n

In the first round?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, in the second round runoff. If you do the math, he had 57 percent of the votes of people who picked a candidate, but only 39 percent of the total number of voters.<\/p>\n

But he won by a large margin.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a third, but yes, he won. He won the elections, but the majority of the people did not vote for him. But why did anyone vote for him? They voted for him because of that phrase I said earlier: \u201cIn times of terror, many people choose a monster to protect them.\u201d So there were people who preferred to believe in a lie called Bolsonaro, in a man who preached hate, who preached violence, in a man who hates black people, who hates gay people, who hates poor people, in a man who said that killing was the answer, yes, they voted for him. Why? Because the opposition was PT, and PT had been demonized.<\/p>\n

Who knows, Glenn, you know that when they ask me, I say that maybe God didn\u2019t want me to win the elections back in 1989. Why? I lost in 1989, I lost in 1994, I lost in 1998, and I never got angry, nobody ever saw me infuriated about losing. I went back home and got ready for the next election. The hatred all started with Dilma\u2019s victory in 2014 \u2014 no, actually with the demonstrations in 2013, and came to a head when A\u00e9cio lost, and then rants against Dilma began, and the hatred, the hatred \u2026<\/p>\n

They couldn\u2019t accept this loss. But I want to ask you something important, because you just said that PT was demonized and talked about the hatred of PT. And there\u2019s a common criticism that I often hear about your strategy in 2018, which is that you did everything possible to weaken the candidacy of Ciro Gomes of the center-left, who many think had a better chance of beating Bolsonaro than the candidate who you chose from your party, Fernando Haddad.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of the hate and loathing of PT in Brazil, because Haddad was unknown outside of S\u00e3o Paulo. And now this is for the international audience: In the first runoff, Haddad ended up in second place, while in the second runoff, Bolsonaro defeated your PT candidate by a huge margin. The critics say that you preferred to lose to Bolsonaro and maintain control over the left with PT, than to have a better chance of beating Bolsonaro if it meant letting another party, namely Ciro\u2019s, represent the left. Is this a valid criticism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you believe this?<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m asking what you think.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m asking if you believe this, you know why?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell you what I know. I know that the candidate who you endorsed so that he could make it to the second round ended up losing by a large margin to Bolsonaro, and I\u2019m asking whether this was the right strategy. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll try to explain. My main strategy, my most basic strategy, goes back to 1989. In 1989, [Leonel] Brizola, who I remember fondly, thought he would win the elections. Brizola came back from exile ready to be president, but I was the one who went to the second round runoff. Did you know Brizola asked me to give up, so that he and I could support Mario Covas instead? So I said, \u201cBrizola, if the people wanted to elect \u00a0Mario Covas, they would have voted for him, so why didn\u2019t they? How would I look for the voters who wanted me in office? Should I give up to support Mario Covas who is way behind?\u201d Really, if the people wanted Ciro to win the second round runoff, why didn\u2019t they vote for him in the first round?<\/p>\n

Because you endorsed Haddad and not Ciro, and because your party also blocked his alliance with the PSB [the Brazilian Socialist Party], and gave up a possible candidacy for the governor of Pernambuco all to help the PT candidate. You\u2019ve heard all these criticisms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Come on, does Ciro really complain because PT had the political means to bring in PCdoB [the Communist Party of Brazil] and PSB [the Brazilian Socialist Party]? What did he want PT to do? Nothing? He wanted PT to talk to PSB, because \u2026<\/p>\n

You were the one who said that PT was demonized, was always under attack \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen, let me tell you something. Ciro\u2019s gotten learn something, this is important in politics, and if you ever want to go into politics, then learn this: If you want someone to like you, then you\u2019ve gotta learn to like them back. If you want someone to respect you, then you\u2019ve got to respect people. So if Ciro really wanted PT\u2019s support, he could have come and discussed things with PT. I\u2019m gonna tell you a story that you might not know, that nobody\u2019s ever told, and that Ciro never told anyone. There was a time that Mangabeira Unger came to my office and said, \u201cMe, Haddad, and Ciro had a meeting, and we agreed that Haddad would be Ciro\u2019s vice president.\u201d And I said, \u201cMangabeira, don\u2019t you think you should\u2019ve discussed this with PT first?\u201d What do you think? Mangabeira, and now this is back in 1994, I was at a dinner at his house in Boston with him, with the beloved Marco Aurelio Garcia, with his beloved wife, and he says to me, \u201cBrizola\u2019s gonna win the election.\u201d I had over 20\u00a0percent of the votes, and Brizola had none, and he says, \u201cBrizola\u2019s gonna win.\u201d So I said, \u201cWhy do you think so, Mangabeira?\u201d And he says, \u201cBecause as soon as Leonel Brizola gets in front of the cameras, all of the workers will vote for him!\u201d And I said, \u201cMangabeira, you must be out of it, this isn\u2019t gonna happen.\u201d Well, the elections came, and I don\u2019t know if you remember what happened that year. They banned the use of outside images, and only allowed candidates to speak directly in front of the camera. So how many votes did Brizola get? He lost to En\u00e9as Carneiro. I ran again in 1994 and had 27\u00a0percent of the votes, but there was no second round. Ciro went to the elections, and didn\u2019t run \u2014 no, he did, and he got 11\u00a0percent of the votes. He then ran again in 2002, and got 11\u00a0percent or 12 percent, and last year he ran again. So I lost four times before winning, and Ciro has already lost three times, maybe he\u2019ll have to lose once more. If Ciro wants to make alliances, he has to learn to have conversations, he has to learn how to convince people, and he has to assume certain programmatic commitments.<\/p>\n

Well, Ciro will definitely hear this interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think Ciro knows what kind of relationship I have with him. I\u2019ve always had a great deal of respect for him, and I thank Ciro for working with me in my government, and I\u2019ll tell you something else: I thought Ciro shouldn\u2019t have even run for the House of Representatives, because I invited him instead to be the president of BNDES [the Brazilian Development Bank].<\/p>\n

Well, this is exactly the reason that he thought he had a better chance than the candidate that you endorsed in the second round runoff. But anyway, I want to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the challenges that the left faces internationally, because it\u2019s really important, and you are one of the few great leaders of the left in the past twenty years, who managed to win national elections in a huge nation and to reach out to the most destitute and marginalized.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s really important to hear what you think of the problems that the left is facing worldwide, because in the majority of countries in the democratic world, including Brazil, the left is facing great difficulties in attracting support from lower socioeconomic classes, but at the same time is seeing increased support for higher classes, people with higher education, and university degrees. So I want to ask, what\u2019s needed in order for the Brazilian left and the left worldwide to be able to reconnect with the people, as you were able to do? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen, during the economic crisis in 2008, I discovered that the world was lacking leadership. I went to meetings with the 20 main leaders of the world, and I realized that nobody knew what to do. I was worried, for example, about the EU, because the EU had become very bureaucratic, and it was no longer the politicians who spoke, it was the bureacrats, it was this committe and that commission, and everything was a committee or commission without the politicians deciding anything. I thought this was pretty bad, you know.<\/p>\n

And in the U.S., Obama also had no way out. I remember calling up Obama during the automobile industry crisis and telling him my plans with the BNDES, with the Bank of Brazil, with the Caixa Economica \u2014 with three public banks that enabled us to kickstart economic growth in Brazil and prevent the crisis from strangling us. Obama regretted that in the U.S. there was no way to have such bank involvement, but there were ways to create development banks. Anyway, here\u2019s what I think the left has to do: First, the left needs, you know \u2026 there are left-wing parties with 100 years of experience, with 150 years of experience, with 80 years, and PT has 40 years of experience, and I think PT has had a very successful experience.<\/p>\n

Now, some folks have said that PT has gotten too far removed from the people. Listen, I would say that PT needs to take a step back but not to its origins \u2014 because you don\u2019t govern for the sake of a party, you govern for the sake of the whole society. When you win an election, you have to govern for the sake of everyone, and of course you can choose who you want to focus on serving more or less, but you have to govern for the sake of everyone, you have to respect everyone, you have to like everyone, you have to serve everyone, and this was how I did things. I doubt, Glenn, that you\u2019ll find any other country, during my presidency, I doubt you\u2019ll find a mayor, a governor, or a representative from an opposition party who had anything bad to say about my government, because we treated everyone with decency.<\/p>\n

I agree, and you left office with an 86 percent approval rate, and one of the most important aspects, in my opinion, of your political appeal was your childhood and background: that you came from poverty, that you only learned to read at age 10, and that you were a laborer at age 16, like millions of other Brazilians. I want to know whether you think it\u2019s important for left-wing parties to be represented by people who learned about poverty not only in theory while in college, but who grew up in poverty themselves and, therefore, have that experience in their bones and can speak with credibility to the people about poverty and about their experience. Do you think that the Brazilian left, or the left internationally, can manage to do this the way you did?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I think the left has many people who have studied very hard<\/a> and who are serious intellectuals who can achieve this. What we need is \u2026<\/p>\n

But is that the same has having experienced it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s really needed is to be committed to these causes. There\u2019s no way to govern a country if \u2026 Do you remember my attitude when I won the election? Do you remember that I put every minister on a plane and took them all to the four most destitute places in Brazil? Why did I do that, anyway? I wanted [Henrique] Meirelles, a banker, and [Antonio] Palocci, a doctor, and [Luiz] Furlan, a businessman \u2014 I wanted them to see a stilt house above a swamp up close, I wanted them to see a man and woman having to defecate in the same room they eat in, I wanted them to see the vast number of young girls with two or three kids and no dad around, I wanted them to see the poverty of Jequitinhonha Valley, I wanted them to see the real world as it is, not just the world as it is in Brasilia. What the left needs is this kind of commitment.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not going to manage to govern if you can\u2019t define which part of the population it\u2019s your priority to serve. So I might like everyone, I might like Glenn, I might like Lula, I might like anyone, but I have to choose. Does Glenn manage to eat three meals a day? Does Glenn have access to education? Does Glenn own a car? Well, then Glenn isn\u2019t my priority. The priority are those who are downtrodden, who don\u2019t have what Glenn has, but who need to.<\/p>\n

But to make this happen, do you think it\u2019s important to have candidates coming from these neighborhoods that have real poverty and that don\u2019t seem overly academic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, what we have to do is prepare ourselves. I prefer that we find candidates who come from backgrounds with popular struggles in their blood, in their veins, but obviously there are many good people out there, not necessarily from poor backgrounds, who are committed to the cause of the poor.<\/p>\n

But most important is having the candidates. Do you think this is what\u2019s missing in Brazil?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitely. This is why the party \u2026 I think what\u2019s missing is more people being involved, more women, more black people, more Indigenous people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve only got 5 minutes left, and I need to ask you \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to know whether you\u2019re going to ask me about Venezuela?<\/p>\n

Sure, but I have to ask you about something else too, or everyone will kill me, because it\u2019s one of the greatest concerns internationally about the situation in Brazil: the Amazon \u2014 given its importance and what it represents in terms of the capacity of human beings to protect the planet, against catastrophic climate disasters. Do you think that the Amazon is under threat because of the Bolsonaro government?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I do think so, because really they have no limits. The only thing they know how to do is destroy, and they don\u2019t give a damn about the biodiversity and ecosystems in Brazil. They just want to destroy it, and I\u2019m concerned about this, because sustainability and the defense of the Amazon are part of the policy of national sovereignty. Brazil has nearly 16,000 kilometers of borders with 10 countries and nearly 8,000 kilometers of ocean borders. The pre-salt layer is 200 miles away from our coastline, and thus right on the limits of our territorial waters and in need of protection, and Brazil has 12\u00a0percent of the fresh water on the planet. Brazil needs to treat our borders, our people, our flora and fauna, and our biodiversity as part of the heritage of all humanity, but administered by Brazil according to our interests. We need to put science and technology at the forefront, along with pharmaceutical advances that the Amazon might contain, as a source of solutions to dozens of diseases around the world. Really, Brazil really needs to take care of all of this. I\u2019m proud of the fact that I participated in COP 15 [2009 U.N. Climate Change Conference] in Copenhagen, when we made a commitment, and Dilma\u2019s commitment to the agreement in Paris. In other words \u2026<\/p>\n

But you were also criticized by Marina Silva, who fought for environmental causes, and by now we are all more aware of the dangers that our planet faces. So with this in mind, are there things that you would have done differently?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen, Glenn, do you know what I figured out? I came to appreciate some of my mother\u2019s principles only after she died. I didn\u2019t realize how much I appreciated her. Now as for Marina having criticisms, well, Marina was the minister of the environment. She was minister for five years. She has no right to complain, she was minister! I didn\u2019t tell her what to do; she told me which environmental policies to implement. In other words, we obviously couldn\u2019t do everything, but I doubt that anyone else achieved as much as we did.<\/p>\n

OK. Well, according to my interview permit, I have a little more than one minute left, so I have one question.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t you gonna cut me some slack and ask me about Venezuela? Come on.<\/p>\n

No, I guess not, because you already discussed this with Kennedy [Alencar and the BBC], so today I really want to ask about Moro, because he\u2019s the judge that condemned you and <\/strong>put you in this prison<\/strong><\/a>, and the one who got you disqualified for running for president. And after all that, he was appointed by Bolsonaro as his minister of justice, a choice that many people consider downright suspect, if not corrupt, while Moro\u2019s conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court. And this week it was revealed that Bolsonaro apparently promised Moro the next seat on the Supreme Court. How do you view this new development in relation to the role Moro had in your criminal case and to the fact that you\u2019re here in prison? <\/strong><\/p>\n

There was another disclosure yesterday, which you might not know about: The minister who convicted me during the second trial revealed yesterday night at a debate in Curitiba that she just cut-and-paste the same pronouncement from the first trial with Moro. Basically now, let me look you in the eyes with the utmost seriousness and responsibility and tell you something: Moro is a liar. Moro is a byproduct of Rede Globo news television and the media. Worse than anyone, he planned things out with the Estado de S\u00e3o Paulo newspaper, he visited all the communication media outlets before launching Operation Car Wash, and he wrote an article admitting that the success of any of their operations depended on the press.<\/p>\n

A judge who depends on the media in order to make convictions is not a real judge. A judge who is making a conviction needs to go carefully through the records of the proceedings, needs to look through all the evidence, both for and against. So I\u2019ll tell you loud and clear: He\u2019s a liar, the commissioner who led the investigation about the apartment is a liar, and the TRF4 lied about me as well. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I don\u2019t enjoy saying any of this, and I know what the consequences are. What I actually want is for Moro to have to make speeches every day, because the more he talks, the more he exposes who he really is. He was not born to anything but read the penal code. As for me, I have a lifelong commitment to prove that these people are lying about me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been locked up here for a year and two months. I\u2019m really, you know \u2026 every day I do exercise to keep myself under control, to avoid seething with rage while watching Brazil being destroyed, while watching our national sovereignty and military officers selling out, while witnessing these nonsensical attacks \u2014 this is all a state of affairs that I can\u2019t imagine how we arrived at. Brazil in 2008 was poised to become the fifth-largest economy in the world. Now we\u2019ve turned into the scourge of the earth. Brazil was the country who helped strengthen Mercosul, who helped create UNASUL, helped create CELAC, helped create BRICS, helped create IBAS, established meetings between South America and the Arab world, established meetings between African countries and Latin America \u2026<\/p>\n

Our time is almost up \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me tell you something: This country is throwing away everything that\u2019s been built up, and now is throwing away a dream with these budget cuts at universities. It\u2019s beyond belief that they can be so ignorant. Some of them even have university degrees, so don\u2019t they know that there is no better way to invest in the future than education? This was exactly what we built up, and this is what they\u2019re destroying. There\u2019s only one thing for the people to do, and that\u2019s to react. He wasn\u2019t elected to destroy Brazil. He wasn\u2019t elected for this. He didn\u2019t even participate in debates, he has no plan, he has nothing.<\/p>\n

We need to wrap up. I want to thank you \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

[As the police officer approaches Lula<\/em>] I want you to know the following, I want to end with a question that you didn\u2019t ask and that I\u2019m gonna answer. I think it\u2019s not right, it\u2019s just not right, the way that Venezuela is being treated. Venezuela deserves its own sovereignty, they have the right to self-determination, and Venezuela\u2019s problems are Venezuelans\u2019 problem, they\u2019re not the USA\u2019s problems. Trump should take care of the U.S. and stop sticking his nose where he\u2019s not wanted.<\/p>\n

Mr. President, again, thank you so much for the interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald<\/a> – glenn.greenwald@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 May 2019 – Among the planet\u2019s significant political figures, no one is quite like Lula. Born into extreme poverty, illiterate until the age of 10, forced to quit school at the age of 12 to work as a shoe shiner, losing a finger at his factory job at 19, and then becoming a labor activist, union leader, and founder of a political party devoted to a defense of laborers (the Workers\u2019 Party, or PT), Lula has always been, in all respects, the exact opposite of the rich, dynastic, oligarch-loyal, aristocratic prototype that has traditionally wielded power in Brazil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":134146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,168],"tags":[547,239,276,267,651,541,1134,109,287],"class_list":["post-134144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics","category-in-depth-videos","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-democracy","tag-geopolitics","tag-justice","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-lula-da-silva","tag-politics","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}