The 47th President and the Post-Biden World 2.0

Fleeing Brazil to the USA has become standard practice among Bolsonaro supporters facing criminal charges or convictions in the country: about a dozen politicians or influencers closely aligned with Jair Bolsonaro have done the same in recent years.

The story of how Flávio Bolsonaro arrived in the United States was odd and is becoming odder. After losing the election to become Brazil’s president on Sunday, he suggested he would contest the results of the election, and Brazilian authorities asked him to give up his Brazilian passport because he is under investigation for laundering more than $1 billion through an online gambling scheme, and for financial irregularities involving a bank regulators shut down for fraud. And then he disappeared.

When he didn’t turn in his passport, authorities canceled it and barred Bolsonaro from leaving the country. Ana Ionova, Edward Wong, Alice Maciel, and Lucía Cholakian Herrera of the New York Times reported today that Bolsonaro, his wife, and his two daughters crossed from Brazil to Argentina in a van across a bridge between the two countries. In Argentina they boarded a plane owned by a private company used by Argentina’s president Javier Milei, an ally of Trump, and flew to Ecuador. In Ecuador they boarded another private jet for Miami.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the U.S. will issue visas for Bolsonaro and his family, allowing them to enter the country.

Flávio Bolsonaro is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of launching a coup against the duly elected Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. On social media this afternoon, the younger Bolsonaro claimed he faced political prosecution in Brazil and declared himself the “legitimate president-elect” of Brazil, later changing that language to “leader of Brazil.” He claimed the legal investigation against him was a “witch hunt.”

Bolsonaro’s defeat strikes a blow at Trump’s evident plan to install right-wing leaders across Latin America as part of a move to create a U.S.-dominated Western Hemisphere. Evidently, Trump intends to shelter Bolsonaro in the U.S.

Yesterday Terrence McCoy, Marina Dias, and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post reported that a justice on the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered Brazilian police to investigate whether Rockbridge, a donor network co-founded by Vice President J.D. Vance, illegally helped to finance Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign.

The Rockbridge Network rejected the suggestion, saying: “The Brazilians made false representations about their relationship with Rockbridge and created documents representing or referencing Rockbridge without Rockbridge’s knowledge or consent.”

While Trump allies are supporting those who share their authoritarian vision of government abroad, MAGA is showing signs of collapsing at home.

In Status yesterday, Oliver Darcy reported a dramatic decline in the numbers of people watching the Fox News Channel. October’s numbers will be down 27% in total viewers and 32% in the age group between 25 and 54 since October of last year. In contrast, MS NOW and CNN are picking up viewers.

Brendan Rascius of The Independent reported that stores featuring Trump merchandise are shutting down around the country as interest in them flags. An owner of a Trump store told Rascius: “The store has kind of run its course.”

A sign of just how deep rejection of MAGA has reached in society was the October 19 article by New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman offering advice to a man who wrote in, concerned that his Brioni suit made people think he was MAGA. “Do I need to be concerned that what I’m wearing is sending the wrong message about my political proclivities?” he asked. Friedman suggested a number of tweaks “to avoid being confused for a MAGA man,” including the possibility of “dress sneakers, which would give the whole look a more casual vibe than the one Team Trump usually conveys, which leans more toward New York in the 1980s.”

Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is running ads featuring Republicans crossing the aisle to vote for him rather than Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton. “I truly believe that he is the most corrupt politician Texas has ever seen,” Republican former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley says in one that features five former Republican officials. “James Talarico is by far, without a doubt, the best person in the race for the U.S. Senate,” former Texas state representative Bennett Ratliff continues.

“I’m a lifelong Republican, and I know it’s hard to go in and vote for a Democrat,” Whitley says. “We need to support the best person, not look at their party label, not look at what jersey they’re wearing, but who is going to represent us,” Ratliff adds. The Republicans urge voters to back Talarico.

In South Carolina, two former governors—Democrat Jim Hodges and Republican David Beasley—cut an ad together to urge voters to support Democratic candidate Dr. Annie Andrews for the U.S. Senate rather than Republican candidate Darline Graham, the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s sister. “This country is too divided,” they say, “and the political rhetoric has gotten way, way out of hand.” Andrews “understands that leadership isn’t about making people angrier. Well, it’s about making things better. She’s willing to put people ahead of politics.” “South Carolina deserves more than the same political fighting,” they say, “so join the two of us in supporting Dr. Annie Andrews. Let’s send her to the United States Senate.”

In Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski has endorsed Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins in the Alaska governor’s race. Saying that “[o]ur future is too important to be hamstrung by partisan divisions” and that Kreiss-Tomkins “understands that governing requires listening to people with different perspectives and finding common ground to solve the problems all of us face,” Murkowski urged “Alaskans of every political stripe” to consider voting for him.

Today Calder McHugh of Politico reported that OpenAI has created an “Election Operations Center” to identify misinformation and efforts to disrupt the upcoming midterm elections. McHugh writes that the company is trying to “position itself as a defender of the democratic process,” positioning that suggests it expects such a defense, rather than support for MAGA, will put it on the right side of politics in the future.

Katie Rogers of the New York Times reported tonight that the “increasingly unpredictable” president is isolated and angry and, as one official put it, “feasting on a media diet of fawning press coverage, disparaging clips about his perceived enemies, and helpings of flattering photos and ‘A.I. slop’” served up by a small group of loyalists. As Lisa Lerer of the New York Times noted on Tuesday, his multiple rallies in states that until recently have been reliably Republican underscore “Republicans’ growing alarm over a political map that leaves Democrats with multiple paths to Senate control.”

And, finally, it appears that authorities have found some voter fraud. Today, as Mark VanCleave and Rebecca Boone of the Associated Press reported, right-wing activists James O’Keefe and Cam Higby were charged with voting unlawfully and stealing an identity after they gave false names to poll workers in Minnesota during the state’s primary election.

The men say they were testing the “vouching” process available in the state that enables voters who lack proof of their current address to vote in a new precinct after another voter in that precinct vouches for them.

The process is rarely used, and poll workers reported the men, who posted a video to YouTube of their attempt to vote fraudulently. O’Keefe and Higby claimed they were simply exposing the “lunacy” of the system.

But it turns out the system worked, and they are now charged with a felony.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s escape from Brazil to Miami turns out to have been arranged, in part, by White House officials including Trump advisor Jason Miller, who arranged for a charter jet to take the Bolsonaros from Argentina to Florida.

Edward Wong, Ana Ionova, Hamed Aleaziz, and Tyler Pager of the New York Times reported today that Trump himself ordered the State Department to give temporary status to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family on humanitarian grounds. U.S. officials told the reporters that the government will likely grant them permanent residency later.

Wall Street Journal reporters Vera Bergengruen, Samantha Pearson, Ryan Dubé, and Philip Wegmann write that Bolsonaro intends to set up a political system in exile, despite the fact that more than 50 countries, including Latin American leaders from a wide range of political persuasions, have recognized the victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s election. Lula won by more than 4.4 million votes. International observers call that margin decisive.

Trump has refused to recognize Lula’s victory, suggesting that the votes against the right-wing Bolsonaro were rigged. But, as the Wall Street Journal reporters add, it is unclear how much political capital he will be willing to expend on propping up Bolsonaro’s pretensions to power.

Trump’s own energies have been devoted to trying to project authority and power, but he has succeeded primarily in illustrating that he is far more concerned with his development projects than with what’s going on in the White House. Yesterday he posted at length on social media about the East Potomac Golf Course he wants to redo—the one where the administration cut down more than 400 trees in defiance of a judge’s order—saying it “is highly dangerous, dilapidated, and absolutely disgusting” and calling for it to be “closed immediately for safety reasons!”

Last night, Eric Flack of WUSA9 reported that the National Park Service told a federal judge it is closing not just the East Potomac Golf Course, but also nearly all of Hains Point beginning on November 15. As Flack notes, this area includes “the perimeter running loop, the dedicated bike and pedestrian lane the Park Service completed in 2023, and the picnic areas and open space used year-round.” The Park Service did not say how long the closure would last. Trump promised: “After we are done, the East Potomac Course will be a place of immeasurable Pride for the City, all of the Golf Enthusiasts who live here, a Course worthy of and befitting our Nation’s Capital.”

Rachel Treisman of NPR reports that plans for the finished park show only a golf course. The current facilities for walkers, runners, cyclists, birders, picnickers, and so on, are not shown.

Trump is paying less attention to the affairs of government. Today, when asked about claims that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had fired Lieutenant General Sylvia for leaking classified information from the Pentagon, Trump responded: “She’s got problems. She’s gonna have big problems. She did. We’re very much looking for leakers and ah, she’s going to have big problems. Long-term problems.”

Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, the director for strategy, plans, and policy on the joint staff that advises the president on military issues, is a man.

Tonight Shauneen Miranda of News From the States reported that Trump has cancelled his rallies in Kansas and Iowa, planned for this weekend. When a reporter asked if the Kansas cancellation meant he was “sick of traveling,” Trump exploded, calling the reporter “sick” and “disgusting” and saying, “You look like hell.”

Trump is also expending his energies in trying to convince Americans that the Democrats are rigging the 2026 midterms.

The administration has tried to force California to set aside 20,000 ballots in the election, claiming that those casting them might not be citizens. Yesterday, as Ryan Sabalow of Cal Matters reported, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter refused to agree, saying the Trump administration is engaging in “a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference.” Carter noted that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has also sent letters to the secretaries of state in New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania claiming that the states’ voter rolls include noncitizens. Mullin publicly alleged there were 15,903 noncitizens on the voter rolls in Nevada, then quietly dropped that number to 185. When Nevada officials chased down the 185 names, every single one belonged to a U.S. citizen.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote. “This case is about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election.”

The administration has asked a federal appeals court to rule by Friday on an emergency attempt to stop California from including those 20,000 ballots in the ballot count. In the meantime, as Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog reported, this afternoon the leadership of the Department of Justice directed California’s top federal prosecutors to launch criminal investigations of local and state officials, claiming they are administering illegal voting.

In a “but her emails” kind of moment, the administration is also jumping on yesterday’s New York Times story by Kellen Browning that a staffer for the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Alaska, Mary Peltola, searched for and recruited a man with a name similar to that of the Republican candidate, Dan Sullivan, as a spoiler for the race.

Browning reported that this sort of activity, called “ballot stacking,” is “common in politics and generally considered legal—and [has] been employed by both parties in Alaska,” and that Republicans had used it against Peltola herself two years ago. The author suggested the story was important simply because it “reveals the lengths to which Democrats went to seek advantage in a Senate race that could determine control of the chamber.”

The source for the story, Peltola’s former campaign manager Elisa Rios, said Peltola was not directly involved in the project but was “definitely aware.” Before publication of the story, Browning notes, Rios “contacted The Times and said she wanted to take back her previous statements. ‘As discussed on our call earlier today, I am confirming that I have retracted all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate Race in connection with any article you may or may not be writing,’ Ms. Rios wrote. ‘I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity.’”

Peltola’s campaign, Peltola, and Daniel J. Sullivan all deny any involvement in a ballot-stacking plan. Sullivan says he ran because he was dissatisfied with the performance of Senator Sullivan. Ballot stacking runs into legal trouble if a candidate is paid to run. No one has said this is the case in the 2026 Alaska race.

On October 23 the Justice Department sued Alaskan election officials to block the certification of a winner in Alaska’s Senate race unless the Republican won, saying the inclusion of Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot might confuse voters who wanted to elect Senator Dan Sullivan, who, unlike Daniel, is listed on the ballot both as a Republican and as the incumbent.

With the publication of the New York Times story, Trump promptly took to social media to call the scheme illegal “ELECTION FRAUD.” He called for Peltola and Daniel J. Sullivan to be removed from the Alaska ballot, letting Republican Senator Dan Sullivan run essentially unopposed.

The Justice Department promptly issued at least three dozen subpoenas and requests for the preservation of documents. On Wednesday night, Republican Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy announced he was ordering an investigation into whether Peltola’s campaign should face criminal charges or civil penalties, although he did not identify any illegality.

Michael Kosnar, Megan Brand, and Raquel Coronell Uribe of NBC News reported that, at Dunleavy’s request, “Alaska’s Department of Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Austin McDaniel said Thursday that the Alaska Bureau of Investigation had started looking into the ‘alleged conduct in a recent New York Times article.’”

Today the New York Times ran two stories noting that ballot stacking is common and legal. A piece by Reid J. Epstein explained that while the Alaska race “has drawn the most attention,... both parties are quietly trying to use little-known candidates in other battlegrounds to siphon votes.” Epstein explained that in Ohio, for example, Republicans are promoting a socialist candidate to take votes from Democratic candidate, former senator Sherrod Brown.

Another piece by Madison Malone Kircher, titled “Ballot Stacking in Elections? History Shows It’s Not Unusual,” listed some of the more spectacular instances of ballot stacking in U.S. history, including the 2020 Florida state senate race in which a Republican paid Alexis Pedro Rodriguez to challenge an incumbent Democrat, state senator José Javier Rodríguez. It worked. The challenger won more than 6,000 votes, 32 more than the incumbent, and the Republicans flipped the seat. In that case, the exchange of money crossed the legal line, and the challenger later pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes.

But the context for the Alaska story arrived too late: Trump and Republicans are pushing the story as hard as they can to suggest Democrats are cheating in the midterm elections.

Another ballot-stacking story from this week adds even more context to the Alaska story. Donald Shaw of Sludge, the home for investigative journalism on money in politics, reported that a review of tax records shows that the nonprofit organization that helped to get Cornel West on the 2024 presidential ballot got all of its $7.7 million in funding that year from a right-wing political network bankrolled by Elon Musk. West, a leftist Black intellectual, was widely seen as a spoiler to siphon votes from Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

And there is, in fact, reason to be concerned about the Alaska election process. Eric Stone and Hannah Flor of Alaska Public Media reported on Tuesday that polling places in some rural areas failed to open as schedules said they would. Democratic state senator Bill Wielechowski wrote to Division of Elections director Carol Beecher and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom on October 23 to say that “at least 18” rural early voting locations “have failed to open as legally required.” He noted that in the primary, “dozens of rural Alaskan voters did not have their absentee in-person votes counted because it took too long for their ballots to arrive by mail to the Division’s regional office,” and expressed concern the same thing could happen in the general election. He called the Division’s failures “shocking.”

Dahlstrom responded: “Of the eighteen sites listed in your letter, three have now declined to open, twelve have confirmed they are open, and we are working to hear from the remaining three locations.” She noted that these early polling locations were free to change their hours.

Meanwhile, there has been widespread talk that Trump intends to restart the military assault against Iran after the election, and it appears a plan is in place should he decide to do so. Yesterday, at the Middle East Institute, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that the war plan that has been prepared for the administration “is insane…. It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.” He continued: “[T]he plan that they have developed will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and an escalation of this war that will be devastating for our security interests.”

Dobbs fallout may have dropped out of the headlines, but existential state-level battles that will decide the fate of women nationwide continue to rage.

This cycle, there’s one anti-abortion amendment and three pro. Two of them could upend the abortion landscape in their states.

In Missouri, where Republicans just can’t get enough of siphoning off their constituents’ power, the GOP is trying to swindle voters into repealing the abortion rights they passed — and enshrined in the state Constitution — just two years ago. They’re calling the legislature-passed initiative on the ballot this cycle Amendment 3 again — the same as the last vote — but this time a “no” vote means keeping abortion rights, the opposite of the last time.

The language is crafted to sound pro-abortion rights: The official summary says, in part, that a yes vote would “continue to ensure women’s ability to access medical care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages; allow legislation to regulate abortion providers and facilities to ensure health and safety…” In reality, the narrow exemptions to the ban, including medical emergencies, only apply up to 12 weeks gestation, and the amendment would let the legislature restrict it even more.

Missouri Republicans have also rolled in a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, which the state already has, the better to hide the anti-abortion agenda behind a campaign of anti-trans bigotry that is more palatable to voters. (If you really want to raise your blood pressure, check out how Nebraska • tricked its voters into an anti-abortion amendment in 2024, the trailblazer for Missouri and one of the rare instances of voters approving abortion bans after Dobbs).

In Idaho, a new ballot measure threatens the state’s draconian abortion ban. A “yes” vote on Proposition 1 would protect abortion until around 22-24 weeks (and beyond for medical emergencies) and shield health care providers, who currently can be charged with felonies and have their licences suspended for performing nearly any kind of abortion. The proposition would only change state law, so it’s not as ironclad as other states’ constitutional amendments — legislators could and probably would pass a law to repeal it (boo), though there is a way for voters to veto that legislation — but Republicans are clearly still worried; they got taken to court over their attempt to use misleading language on the ballot.

In Nevada and Virginia — one a purple state and one the only southern state with the right to abortion — abortion rights advocates are trying to lock in access permanently. Both ballots will feature constitutional amendments; Nevada’s will protect all abortions until 22-24 weeks with medical exceptions beyond that, and Virginia’s would protect an all-encompassing right to reproductive freedom. In Nevada, citizen-initiated constitutional amendments need to pass two elections in a row (boo again), and this one easily did with over 64 percent of the vote in 2024. Virginia does not currently have any explicit protections for abortion, critical for a state that has become a hub of care for women fleeing red state bans.