US lawmakers condemned recent unrest in Brazil when supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed and vandalized January 6-style government buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on Sunday.
“I am disturbed by the violence that took place today in Brasilia,” Senator Cory Booker (DN.J.) wrote in a tweet on Sunday. “I support the democratically elected government of Brazil and condemn the violence that attempts to undermine it.”
“The democracies of the world must act quickly to make it clear that there will be no support for right-wing insurgents storming the Brazilian Congress,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who was a member of the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack. “These fascists modeled after Trump’s January 6 rioters should end up in the same place: prison,” he tweeted.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) wrote that the United States “must show solidarity” with Brazil’s newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his administration, adding that it “must stop granting refuge to Bolsonaro”, who is currently in Orlando, Florida.
“Almost two years to the day the United States Capitol was attacked by fascists, we are seeing fascist movements abroad trying to do the same in Brazil,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her tweet.
“When Americans show contempt for democracy, the contempt spreads,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote Sunday. “Those who are trying to overthrow the legitimately elected government of Brazil must be held to account, just as the traitors here did.”
In a tweet, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) called on the Biden administration and local Florida authorities to extradite Bolsonaro.
“I support Lula and the democratically elected government of Brazil,” Castro wrote in his tweet. “Terrorists and domestic fascists cannot be allowed to use the Trump playbook to undermine democracy.”
Biden publicly condemned the events in Brazil and said the United States will continue to work with Lula and the current Brazilian government in an effort to get the United States to fully support the country’s democratic institutions.
“Today’s attacks are exactly why I pushed for a resolution in the Senate supporting free and fair elections in Brazil,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a tweet. “It is about whether Brazil is a democracy or not. We support the country’s democratically elected government and condemn such authoritarian violence.”
