Trump calls Brazil’s election ‘rigged’ without evidence, questions voting extension but says he gets along with Lula

President Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of Brazil’s presidential election on Monday, telling reporters before departing for a campaign rally in Mississippi that the vote “looked like another rigged election,” while offering no evidence that the result was compromised.

“I watched the election, and it looked so corrupt, so terrible,” Trump said. Asked whether the United States would take any action, he replied: “I’m not running Brazil. I’m running the U.S. I like Lula. I get along with him very well, but the extension given was very strange.”

Brazil’s electoral court declared President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the winner with 51.79% of valid votes, compared with 48.21% for Flávio Bolsonaro, a margin of more than 4.4 million votes. Fewer than 35,000 votes were cast during the two-hour extension criticized by Trump, according to election data cited by Reuters.

Bolsonaro has refused to concede and is seeking to annul the result, alleging irregularities related to the voting extension. No evidence has been presented showing that the extension changed the outcome.

During the same exchange with reporters, Trump also attacked former President Barack Obama, calling him “not a smart guy” and saying only “a stupid person” would have run the country as Obama did. His comments followed Obama’s weekend criticism of Trump’s renovations to the White House.

Asked about Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela and whether the country would need debt restructuring, Trump said only: “We will take a look at it,” without specifying which part of the question he was addressing.

Trump also praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of Israel’s election, saying he had done “a very good job as prime minister under very trying conditions.”