Trump Calls Lula's Brazil Win Rigged as Bolsonaro's Party Accepts Result

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's surprise win in Brazil's presidential election "looked like another rigged election." He offered no evidence. The comments came even as the party of the defeated right-wing candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, later acknowledged the outcome.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said he had not taken sides in the race. "It looked very bad to me," he said, adding that the way the vote was tabulated gave it "a very bad look." He also called the extension of voting hours "very strange."

That extension stems from a decision by Brazil's Supreme Court to lengthen voting by two hours on Sunday. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, had refused to concede and said he would seek to annul Lula's victory over the extra time. An analysis of electoral records by Insper professor Pedro Burgos found that fewer than 35,000 votes, roughly 0.03% of the total, were cast during those two hours. Lula won by more than 4 million votes, a margin that would be hard to overturn.

Later on Monday, the Liberal Party issued a statement signed by its head, Valdemar Costa Neto. "We recognize the presidential election results," he said, while adding that the party believed "the issues raised need to be properly clarified." Flávio Bolsonaro has not spoken publicly since the statement. Earlier in the day, after visiting his father, who is under house arrest, he said he would comply with a federal police order to hand over his passports and denied he planned to flee Brazil.

Trump did not endorse Bolsonaro before the vote, though Reuters has reported that State Department officials led a campaign to return the Bolsonaros to power. Vice President Geraldo Alckmin defended the Brazilian electoral system in a TV interview with Rede Vanguarda, calling Trump's remarks "totally wrong" and "unfounded."

Neither Trump nor Jair Bolsonaro accepted their election defeats in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Brazil's former president received a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing to Lula. Analysts do not expect Flávio Bolsonaro to build the kind of anti-democratic movement his father mounted in 2022.

Markets reacted sharply to the result. Brazil's real fell 8.1% against the dollar, its biggest one-day drop since 2002, and the stock exchange posted its steepest one-day decline since 2020. Investors had been betting on a Bolsonaro win. Andres Abadia, chief Latin America economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the initial selloff could ease as election-related positions are unwound, but that investors "will demand convincing fiscal commitments before rebuilding exposure."

World leaders have widely congratulated Lula on his unprecedented fourth mandate. His victory defied polls, precedent and global anti-incumbent sentiment, and slowed a wave of right-wing election wins across Latin America. He trailed Bolsonaro in the first round but won the runoff, helped, according to pollsters, by higher-than-expected turnout and a stronger social media campaign.

Lula campaigned on his record of reducing poverty and inequality and cited record-low unemployment, illiteracy and deforestation. His new term may still prove difficult. A surge of conservative voters in the first round pushed Congress further to the right, leaving him with an uphill fight for his agenda in a legislature packed with Bolsonaro allies.