Key facts
- Flávio Bolsonaro lost Brazil's presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on October 25, 2026, by more than 4 million votes.
- Bolsonaro spoke at a Conservative Political Action Conference dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, November 5, 2026.
- Bolsonaro told the New York Times he received help from no one in leaving Brazil.
- Bolsonaro faces federal police investigations for money laundering and corruption.
- Bolsonaro will lose parliamentary immunity early next year when his term ends.
- Bolsonaro received 59 million votes in the election, according to The Guardian.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right politician who lost Brazil's presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on October 25, 2026, by more than 4 million votes, made his first major public appearance since leaving Brazil on Thursday night at a rightwing gathering at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. He told the Conservative Political Action Conference's four-day event that "great things" were still to come.
"I know this wasn't the end for Brazil and I know it wasn't the end for America," Bolsonaro, 45, told a gala dinner, according to The Guardian. He added: "Even when what seems like the end isn't what we'd hoped for, we must thank God and have even more faith that this isn't yet the end." Liz Truss, the former British prime minister, is also due to speak at the event.
In his first post-election interview, with the New York Times, Bolsonaro made unsubstantiated claims about election fraud and said he received "help from absolutely no one" to flee Brazil. "It was all me," he said, contradicting reports that he was aided by Trump adviser Jason Miller and Santiago Caputo, a close aide to Argentina's Javier Milei. He said he would "take to the grave" the full story of how he left.
Bolsonaro, a member of congress who has held elected office for more than 20 years, faces federal police investigations for money laundering and corruption. He will lose parliamentary immunity early next year when his term ends, meaning he could then be prosecuted.
Brazilian analysts said that by leaving the country after an election in which he received 59 million votes, Bolsonaro abdicated leadership of the opposition. Thomas Traumann, an author and pundit for GloboNews, said: "Flávio was foolish enough to throw away the leadership of the opposition that he could have exercised had he stayed in Brazil. But the [Bolsonaro] family is still a player."
His brother Eduardo Bolsonaro also lives in self-imposed exile in the US and will have to serve a four-year sentence for coercion if he returns to Brazil. Four other members of the Bolsonaro family were elected to congress in last month's election, including brothers Carlos and Jair Renan and stepmother Michelle Bolsonaro.
Traumann said it was not inconceivable that Jair Bolsonaro, the jailed former president, would attempt a political comeback if he negotiated his way out of a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula. The 71-year-old is banned from running for office until 2060 and must live under house arrest.