#Brazils #Bolsonaro #spat #heckling
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro got into an altercation on Thursday with a social media personality who questioned and insulted him and grabbed the man’s shirt and arm after he called the leader a “bum.”
Video of the incident outside the presidential residence shows Bolsonaro clutching the heckler in an apparent attempt to grab his cellphone while the man filmed himself criticizing the far-right leader.
News site G1, which published the video, identified the man as Wilker Leao, a self-proclaimed lawyer, corporal, politics junkie and military enthusiast with 127,000 followers on TikTok.
The incident happened outside Brasilia’s Alvorada Palace as a grinning Bolsonaro, looking casual in an open, short-sleeved blue shirt, greeted supporters who crowded around his waiting motorcade to take photos with him.
Filming with his phone, Leao approached the President and asked why he had formed an alliance with a corruption-tainted group of parties known as “Centrao” and signed a law restricting pleadings, which are often at Investigations against transplants are used.
An unidentified person pulled Leao away and threw him to the ground. Undeterred, Leao approached again and called the President, who got into his car, a “coward”, “bum” and “the treasure of Centrao”.
Bolsonaro then got out of the car and appeared to reach for Leao’s phone.
“Come here, I want to talk to you,” the president said, first grabbing Leao by the front of his soccer jersey and then clasping his left arm with both hands.
Then the President’s security detail intervened and escorted Leao away.
A few minutes later, Bolsonaro allowed Leao to approach again – a line of bodyguards between them – and spoke to him briefly.
“I have to get things through Congress, right?” said the President before returning to his car and leaving.
Neither Leao nor the president’s office immediately responded to requests for comment.
Bolsonaro, a 67-year-old ex-army captain, is running for re-election in October against leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).
Leao, who regularly posts videos of himself asking hostile questions to both left and right supporters, said he’s not a fan of Lula’s Labor Party (PT) either, also calling them “bums.”
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#Brazils #Bolsonaro #spat #heckling
