Trump Praises Jair Bolsonaro After He’s Convicted for Plotting a Coup

President Donald Trump was—predictably—dismayed by the news that Brazil’s former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, had been sentenced to 27 years in prison.

“President Bolsonaro was just found guilty by the Supreme Court [of Brazil]. You’ve been very clear that you would apply further sanctions to Brazil because of Bolsonaro,” a reporter said to Trump on Thursday. 

Trump on Bolsonaro: It's very much like they tried to do with me but they didn't get away with it pic.twitter.com/6fIa4ceZKK

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2025

 “Well, I watched that trial, I know him pretty well. Hard leader … I thought he was a good president of Brazil. And it’s very surprising that that could happen. That’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they couldn’t get away with it, at all,” the president replied. “But uh, I can only say this: I knew him as president of Brazil, he was a good man. And I don’t see that happening.” 

Trump and Bolsonaro share a long-running fondness for authoritarianism that transcends borders, and has led them to become true allies over the years.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced the former leader to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup in 2023, or what some see as an attempt to recreate January 6 in Brazil. Bolsonaro had his supporters raid Brazil’s presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and Congress, all because he’d rather see chaos than admit he lost the election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

The coup attempt caused “damage of an Amazonian scale.” Bolsonaro also planned to have multiple leaders arrested or assassinated. 

The former Brazilian leader’s actions and conviction only endeared him to Trump. In July, the president posted one of his many tariff letters on Truth Social, this one addressed to Brazil. He ordered them to end their “witch hunt” of Bolsonaro “IMMEDIATELY” or be hit with 50 percent tariffs. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also chimed in disapprovingly. 

“The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Rubio wrote Thursday on X. “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”

 While Brazil’s left is wary of continued, U.S.-backed attempts from Bolsonaro’s party and supporters to free him, they see the conviction as  repudiation of authoritarianism rather than a political persecution. 

“Today, Brazil is making history,” Lindbergh Farias, who heads Lula’s Workers’ Party in the lower house of Brazil’s Congress, said, after Bolsonaro’s sentencing. “Brazil is saying: ‘Coups are a crime!’”