00:00He took a very wild and secret journey traveling through the night via Argentina, Ecuador and
00:07eventually landing in Miami.
00:09On Sunday night, Flavio lost the election.
00:12He eventually came out and said that he was not recognizing his loss and that he would
00:16seek the annulment of the result.
00:18He then went to bed, disappeared, Lula celebrated his victory.
00:22The next day, Flavio came out and said that he had been ordered by Brazil's Supreme Court
00:26to hand over his passports.
00:28He also said that he would comply with the order and that he had no plans to flee Brazil.
00:32After that, he went dark.
00:34On Tuesday, we started getting reports that his whereabouts were unknown, that he couldn't
00:38be reached.
00:39The federal police started looking for him and eventually we confirmed that he was on
00:43his way to the United States.
00:44But it seems actually, he was heading to Argentina, he crossed the land border there, was not in
00:51Argentina for very long and then boarded a private jet from Argentina all the way up to
00:56Guayaquil in Ecuador.
00:58And from Guayaquil, it looks like he refueled and then flew from there to Miami.
01:03To understand Flavio's departure, you actually need to go back in time a little bit and look
01:08at his father's political decisions.
01:11After Jair Bolsonaro lost the 22 election, again to Lula, he also went to the United States.
01:19He eventually came back to Brazil.
01:21He was eventually tried and convicted of trying to plot a coup.
01:24The people behind the investigations into Jair Bolsonaro, Flavio's father, have also been
01:30investigating other members of the family, including Flavio.
01:33Flavio was and remains a senator, which gives him immunity from prosecution.
01:39But after losing the election, he now in early next year will lose that immunity from prosecution.
01:44On Monday, the Supreme Court ordered Flavio to hand in his passports as part of a money
01:51laundering probe, which he's being investigated for.
01:53Flavio denies any guilt in that probe.
01:57Lula called Flavio's departure shameful, he said it was a shame that he had not decided
02:04to stay in Brazil and fight for his innocence, to be proven innocent.
02:09Lula himself was jailed on corruption charges that were later overturned.
02:14Certainly, the fact that Flavio Bolsonaro's father, Jair Bolsonaro, also fled after losing
02:20the election and then returned to Brazil only to be convicted of plotting a coup has led many
02:25in Brazil to view Flavio as maybe unwilling to stand up to the repercussions of his actions.
02:33That's not an entirely widespread view.
02:35Others view the Bolsonaro family as victims of judicial warfare carried out by a Supreme
02:42Court that holds a grudge against them.
02:43So the country remains very divided.
02:46The Bolsonaro clan has been very much weakened by Flavio's departure and it leaves the Brazilian
02:51right without a clear heir who can really be a solid opponent to Lula as he embarks on
02:58his historic fourth term.
03:01Relations between Brazil and the United States have not been good for a while.
03:05Lula was already claiming that Washington was encroaching on Brazilian sovereignty even
03:09before the election.
03:10For Washington to then offer Flavio Bolsonaro this special visa for him and his family to
03:17come into the United States is certainly not going to improve relations.
03:21At the moment we don't know anything about official US involvement in his escape.
03:25The only thing we do know is that the United States has offered him and his family a visa
03:30to come and enter the United States.
03:33Trump did not endorse Flavio Bolsonaro ahead of the election.
03:37Sources say that may have been a strategic decision.
03:40Earlier efforts to boost Flavio Bolsonaro's candidacy actually ended up helping Lula because
03:45he could point to this idea of US interference in Brazilian domestic affairs.
03:50But clearly as we can see by the fact that they've offered him safe harbour after the
03:53election and Trump has also said that the election appeared to him to be rigged shows
03:58that they were definitely in Flavio's corner.
