Flavio Bolsonaro says in livestream he left Brazil due to 'persecution'

Former Brazilian presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro uses Instagram to explain why he fled to the US after his election loss.

Mr Bolsonaro secretly left Brazil on Tuesday, and arrived in Florida on a private jet on Wednesday.

The 45-year-old says he plans to run for president again "before" the next scheduled national election in 2030.

Former Brazilian conservative presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro says he fled to the United States because he was a victim of "persecution" in his country.

Mr Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday's election runoff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, secretly left Brazil on Tuesday and arrived in Florida aboard a private jet on Wednesday, after travelling through Argentina and Ecuador.

"The persecution began even sooner than I imagined," the senator said during an Instagram livestream in which he discussed his decision to flee after his Brazilian passports were cancelled as part of a money-laundering investigation.

In the video, first posted on X by right-wing influencer Simon Levy, Mr Bolsonaro recounted how police informed him on Monday that his passports were being revoked.

It came after a visit to his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest.

"With tears in his eyes, he told me, 'You know where they're going with this, don't you?'" he said of his father.

"I told him, 'Dad, I know … Now I know what I have to do.'"

Although he gave no details of how he left the country, he said he and his wife made the decision "without anyone knowing" and urged people not to "point the finger at anyone".

US President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei are under pressure to explain the involvement of the US and Argentina in the senator's escape.

"I didn't leave Brazil, I left for Brazil," Flavio Bolsonaro said, alleging that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had made false accusations against him.

He also suggested there had been irregularities in the runoff, comparing them to "handball goals" that were not disallowed by VAR, without detailing what those irregularities might have been.

He also predicted that the economy would "go bust" under Mr Lula and said he was willing to run for president again.

"I'm not talking about 2030, I'm talking about before then," Mr Bolsonaro said.

The Trump administration does not plan to back Mr Bolsonaro's claim to be Brazil's rightful leader, according to a US official and another person familiar with the matter

Mr Trump had said Brazil's election on Sunday looked "rigged" but has pointed out that he offered no endorsement in the hotly contested race.

He also said he gets along well with 81-year-old Mr Lula, who beat the odds to clinch re-election by 3.5 percentage points.

The Bolsonaro departure was the latest chapter in a tumultuous period in Brazilian politics and in US-Brazil relations.

Bolsonaro's father was president from 2019 to 2023, then lost re-election to Mr Lula and was jailed last year for his self-coup attempt.

Mr Lula himself spent 17 months in jail in 2018 and 2019 on corruption charges that were later annulled.

The US last year slapped sanctions on the judge overseeing the trial of the elder Bolsonaro and other Brazilian officials.

Washington lifted the sanctions after Mr Trump and Mr Lula had a notably cordial interaction at the UN General Assembly.

During the campaign, Brazil objected to what it called attempts by some US officials to boost the Bolsonaro campaign, and the government has refused to seat the incoming US ambassador to Brazil, a close ally of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in part due to those objections.