Brazil’s Lula Claims US Election Meddling, but Lacks Evidence

On July 25, Brazil denied visa requests for two officials from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor on the basis of “evidence pointing to a renewed attempt to politically exploit the situation and undermine the electoral system,” according to Brazilian officials.

On July 29, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confirmed the visa denials and repeated the allegation.

All of this establishes that, yes, the Trump administration likely does have a preferred candidate in Brazil’s presidential election.

“This week we had to deny visas to two young folks they were sending to Brazil to meddle in Brazil’s elections,” said Lula. The State Department has since rejected the claims as “baseless” and described the visit as the kind of trip routinely made as part of the Bureau of Democracy’s purpose.

The two officials, Assistant Secretary Riley Barnes and Deputy Assistant Secretary Samuel Samson, would have visited Brasília, Brazil’s capital, from July 27 through July 30. They planned to meet with government officials and religious leaders about election integrity, religious freedom, and freedom of expression.

The Brazilian government has yet to publicly produce any evidence demonstrating that the proposed visit was a ploy to meddle in the upcoming elections. Unless, of course, Brazil considers any scrutiny of its electoral institutions as constituting interference.

Anxiety over election integrity and influence operations is not a new phenomenon. Before losing the 2022 contest to Lula, then-President Jair Bolsonaro assembled foreign diplomats and officials at a meeting held at the Alvorada Palace to allege that the country’s electronic voting system had severe flaws that jeopardized free and fair elections. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court ruled that the event constituted an abuse of political power and misuse of government media and barred Bolsonaro from public office for eight years.

In 2025, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court convicted Bolsonaro on charges including leading an armed criminal organization, attempting a coup, and attempting the “violent abolition” of Brazil’s democratic order.

With Jair unable to run, his son Flávio is carrying the torch of his father’s movement into October’s election against Lula.

Flávio’s camp has hardly concealed its desire to court the Trump administration. President Trump hosted Flávio in the Oval Office in May and afterward called him “a smart young man who loves his Country, Brazil, very much.” A year earlier, Trump had issued an executive order accusing Brazilian authorities of politically persecuting Jair Bolsonaro and used that treatment, among other disputes, to justify additional tariffs.

Flávio has also invited international attention to the election. After addressing dozens of foreign diplomats earlier this month, his campaign that he had encouraged them to “send as many representatives as possible on international [election] observation missions,” as they “contribute to the improvement of the electoral process … and public trust in the elections.” Flávio — very carefully — the integrity of the same electoral systems that his father had cast doubt on.

All of this establishes that, yes, the Trump administration likely does have a preferred candidate in Brazil’s presidential election. None of it establishes that the American diplomats intended to manufacture allegations of fraud or interfere with the administration of Brazil’s election. In fact, their stated agenda certainly fell within the category of international scrutiny Flávio had publicly encouraged earlier in July, even if they were not themselves election-observers.

Unless real evidence is released, Lula’s accusation looks less like the exposure of some diabolical meddling scheme than an attempt to transform Washington’s political preference for his rival into one.

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