United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday that defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, who fled to the United States after losing his country's presidential election, can stay in the country "as long as he wants."
Donald Trump spoke to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday evening. He added that he has no plans to meet with Flavio Bolsonaro, the Brazilian senator who arrived in Miami with his family on Wednesday, October 28.
A new chapter in the Bolsonaro exile
Flavio Bolsonaro lost Brazil's presidential runoff to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and has refused to concede, initially pledging to seek an annulment of the result. Days before his flight, a Brazilian judge ordered him to surrender his passports and barred him from leaving the country, as part of a criminal investigation into his alleged involvement in a money laundering scheme. Flavio Bolsonaro left Brazil anyway, with his wife and two daughters.
Donald Trump had already said publicly that he approved of Flavio Bolsonaro coming to the United States, calling Brazil's election "very strange" when the defeated candidate landed in Miami. Days later, Donald Trump also called Brazil's election rigged. Saturday's remark goes one step further: an open-ended welcome, with no meeting attached.
Why it matters days before the midterms
The statement lands two days before the November 3 midterm elections, in which all House seats and more than a third of the Senate are on the ballot. Donald Trump has spent the closing days of the campaign rallying voters across the country, including stops in Iowa and Kansas on Sunday, and has repeatedly used the Bolsonaro case as a campaign talking point about foreign elections.
For Lula da Silva's government, the open-ended stay of a defeated candidate who refuses to accept the result — and who defied a court order to leave Brazil — remains a diplomatic flashpoint between Washington and Brasilia. Lula da Silva's government has not said publicly whether it will seek Flavio Bolsonaro's return, but the passport order he defied remains in force in Brazil, and the criminal investigation behind it continues.
Sources: Reuters, November 1, 2026; USA Today midterm live blog citing Reuters, November 1, 2026; The Times of India live blog, November 1, 2026.