Introduced by Bannon at an event in South Dakota last year as Trump’s “third son from the tropics,” Eduardo became his father’s trusted international envoy and ideologue, forging close ties to conservative allies abroad such as the Trump family. With Jair Bolsonaro facing an uphill battle to win a second term in October in an election seen as a critical test of democracy in Latin America’s largest country, Eduardo has joined his father in challenging Brazil’s electronic voting system and challenges the supreme court. A former two-term president, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leads almost all polls by a wide margin, but Eduardo believes the race is a “tie”. “I don’t trust the polls,” he says in his congressman’s cramped office in Brasilia. Eduardo Bolsonaro, left, with his father Jair. In 2019 the president tried to name ’03 as Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, but was forced to back down © Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images Nicknamed “03” by his father in reference to his older brothers, Senator Flávio and Rio Councilor Carlos, Eduardo initially avoided politics. He served in Brazil’s federal police before winning a seat in São Paulo’s Congress in 2014 at the age of 30. “We spent about $10,000 and I was elected,” he says in a rare interview. “He was really lucky.” Four years later he set an electoral record, winning the most votes of any member of the Lower House, 1.84 million. Eduardo comes across as friendly and kind, but his remarks are not always charitable. He spends at least as much time attacking the high court as he does criticizing his father’s main opponent for the presidency. Judges are “fighting” his father by intervening “constantly” in favor of Lula, he says. With a broader mandate than many global peers, Brazil’s top legal body can open its own investigations as well as appeal judges. Many Brazilians see the court as a bastion of democracy. But for Bolsonaro, his sons and the country’s right wing, he represents a leftist establishment that resists the president’s conservatism. “In dictatorships they close the press, they put journalists in jail, they exile people, they arrest party presidents, they arrest politicians,” Eduardo said. “Everything I said is happening in Brazil, but no [at] the hands of President Bolsonaro, [at] in the hands of the supreme court.” He cited Daniel Silveira, a former military police officer turned member of the Bolsonista Congress who became a famous far-right target. The supreme court sentenced Silveira to almost nine years in prison in April after the politician threatened judges, including Alexandre de Moraes, in online posts. One said: “People need to go to the Supreme Court, grab De Moraes by the throat and throw his egghead in the bin.” Eduardo did not condemn Silveira and called the high court’s behavior “disgusting.” De Moraes “says he is the victim, he [makes] the charges and decides the case. . . so it’s a unique system we have here in Brazil.” His father ordered a presidential pardon for Silveira. Eduardo’s command of English, acquired during a work exchange program in the US, and his ideological beliefs have helped him become a bridge between Bolsonaro and his allies abroad. The president tried in 2019 to name his son Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, but backed down after congressional opposition. Donald Trump welcomes Jair Bolsonaro to the then US president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in May 2020 © Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images Eduardo says he admires Trump “a lot” and the feeling seems mutual. On the wall of his office is a copy of Eduardo’s Wikipedia entry with a handwritten endorsement from the former US president: “Eduardo, you are wonderful. A big statement about your wonderful father is coming soon — best wishes, Donald.’ “He has a unique gift for channeling America’s conservative movement, with a Brazilian twist,” said Gerald Brant, a US-based financier close to the Bolsonaro family. “He will carry his father’s mantle away.” Eduardo was in Washington during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, but declined to comment on the riot, saying it was “an internal issue” for Americans. He has since held further meetings with members of the Trump family and allies, including last August’s South Dakota conference attended by Bannon. Tom Shannon, a former senior State Department official who specializes in Latin America, said he understood that Eduardo “looked very closely at January 6 to understand what went wrong and why Trump was unsuccessful.” “The real solution for them was that Trump was dependent on the mob to be successful,” Shannon said. “They believe . . . they need institutional support, they need the armed forces.” President Bolsonaro’s attacks on the electronic ballot, repeated at a meeting of ambassadors in July, prompted the Biden administration to voice its support for Brazil’s electoral system. “We are absolutely confident that Brazil’s next election result will reflect the will of the voters,” a senior State Department official said. The president claimed that electronic voting machines are vulnerable to tampering and called on the military to oversee the parallel counting of votes. Eduardo asks questions about what he and his father could do if the electoral system is not changed and Zaire loses the election. “I think they will improve [the voting system],” he says. “Everything else is forward thinking. . . . I don’t know if [our supporters will] go out into the streets.” Eduardo Bolsonaro’s wife Heloisa shared a photo on Instagram of Eduardo celebrating his 38th birthday this month with a birthday cake featuring a .38 caliber revolver © Instagram The prospect of violent protests concerns the authorities. But Eduardo – whose desk is adorned with replica toy guns and a sign that reads “Gun Safety Rule #1: Carry One” – believes gun ownership, which has quadrupled under his father’s tenure, has made Brazil safer. He worries that Lula will pay for the firearms. “Only dictators take people’s guns because they think the people are a threat,” he says. “We think otherwise and would like to give people the ability to defend themselves and their property.” For ’03, his father’s defense of such freedoms defines his presidency and builds his re-election case. “He sacrificed his personal life to bring freedom to Brazilians. . . he is a freedom fighter,” says Eduardo.
