Elon Musk is challenging a Brazilian judge who is trying to clamp down on free speech. The judge has demanded that X take down alleged “far right” accounts or face severe punishments in the country … sound familiar? In its attempt to "prevent" a right-wing “dictatorship,” Brazil’s leftist government has created a fascist dictatorship of its own. And allegedly, the United States played a big role. Glenn breaks down the story and warns that what’s happening in Brazil is exactly what’s coming to America: “If we don’t get out and vote, this is our future in America.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Pat, are you following what's going on in Brazil?

PAT: Not terribly closely.

GLENN: Yeah. Okay.

So I haven't either.

And I just started paying attention to it, over the weekend.

Because of Michael Shellenberger.

He did a video that was just incredible.

And very disturbing.

He's talking about the -- you know, the same kind of corruption, that is happening in our government.

Down in Brazil. Where they are stifling the media. But it's much, much worse than that.

Let me give you a couple of things that we have found during our -- during our research.

Listen to this.

This is from the New York Times.

He's Brazil's defender of democracy.

Is he actually good for democracy?

Alexandre De Moraes. A Brazilian Supreme Court justice. Was crucial to Brazil's transfer of power.

But his aggressive tactics are prompting debate. Can one go too far to fight the far right?

Think of that question.

How unbelievable that question is. Of course. And why is it just the right?

When Brazil's highway police began holding up buses full of voters on Election Day, he ordered them to stop.

When right-wing voices spread the baseless claim that Brazil's election is stolen. He ordered them banned from social media. When thousands of right-wing protesters stormed Brazil's halls of power this month, he ordered the officials who had been responsible for securing the buildings, arrested.

Alexandre De Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice has taken up the mantle of Brazil's lead defender of democracy.

Using a broad interpretation of the court's powers, he has pushed to investigate, prosecute, and as well, silence those on social media. Anyone he deems a menace to Brazil's institutions.

As a result, in the face of antidemocratic attacks from Brazil's former far right president, Bolsonaro and his supporters, Mr. De Moraes cleared the way for the transfer of power.

Many on Brazil's left that made him the man who saved Brazil's young democracy, yet many others in Brazil say he's threatening it. He kind of has a -- hmm. Heavy hand. These are some of the things, according to the New York Times he has done. He has jailed people without trial, for posting threats on social media. He helped sentence a sitting Congressman to nearly nine years in prison for threatening the court.

He has ordered raids on businessmen, with little evidence of wrongdoing. He has suspended an elected governor from his job. He has unilaterally blocked dozens of accounts and thousands of posts on social media, with virtually no transparency and no room for appeal.

In the hunt for justice after the riot, he became further emboldened. His orders to ban prominent voices online, have proliferated. And now he has the man accused of fanning Brazil's extremist flames. Mr. Bolsonaro in his crosshairs.

Last week -- now, remember this is an old New York Times from about two years ago.

De Moraes, included Bolsonaro in a federal investigation of the riot, which she is overseeing, suggesting the former president inspired the violence.

Sound familiar? His moves fit into a broader trend of Brazil's Supreme Court, increasing its power and taking what critics have called a more repressive turn in the process.

So he is -- he is taking extra constitutional powers. Over the weekend, he said, if you don't give me your data, Facebook, Google, and X, on all of the people that are posting. If you don't give that to me, you're banned from being in Brazil.

A judge. So everybody did, except for Elon Musk. Elon Musk said, the guy is a fascist.

Michael Shellenberger is down saying, Brazil is becoming a fascistic dictatorship with this guy in charge.

Now, if you remember, the left was saying Bolsonaro was a dictator. And so now, to prevent the dictator, they have become dictators.

The exact scenario, that we were worried about here, in America. But nobody seems -- nobody really seems to care.

So there's a guy named Mike Benz, who I'll follow and watch from time to time, he had a really good look at this.

He was down, looking at censorship in Brazil. And he said, I found the United States, all over it.

He said, the United States department funded NGOs. And not just State Department funded NGOs. But National Endowment for Democracy is also down there. He said, you had USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, funding a bunch of domestic censorship groups in Brazil. And he says, it goes back to the beginning of Bolsonaro's reign as president down there in 2019. So the same thing that was happening here with Donald Trump, the United States through NGOs took your tax dollars and started fighting against Bolsonaro.

In June 2019, the Atlantic Council convened a meeting about what to do about the rise of disinformation in Brazil. That was pro-Bolsonaro in nature. What a surprise.

The Atlantic Council panel called election watch in June 2019. Bemoaned the fact that in Brazil, people were paying attention to their own friends, family, and clergy, than they were institutions. Global institutions such as the Atlantic Council, which is a CIA pass through. It has seven CIA directors on its board.

It's annually funded every year by the Pentagon for the State Department. And the National Endowment for Democracy. Which is also a CIA cutout.

In addition to that, a bunch of these university centers in Brazil and civil society groups, get National Endowment for Democracy funding.

So this is the CIA and the State Department, and USA ID, directly funding, in June 29, the censorship apparatus, in Brazil, against Bolsonaro.

In 2019, social media was already censored in Brazil, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were hit hard bit censors. The same way it did in the United States.

So the Bolsonaro supporters switched to WhatsApp and Telegram to spread their messaging, because they were basically kicked off of Facebook.

Does any of this sound familiar?

This is why one of the biggest audiences for Gab, one of the first free speech alternative platform attempts, was the Brazilian population in 18 and 2019, because they were hit with that first leg of the censorship board.

So what the Atlantic Council and a bunch of these other national endowment for democracy-funded CIA proxies did, is they then targeted WhatsApp and Telegram.

And then promoted these activities, these proxies within Brazil, to put pressure on the Brazilian government to take out WhatsApp and Telegram.

So WhatsApp and Telegram then censored populous supporters. Right-wing populous nationalists. Bolsonaro supporters.

This -- this -- this is the United States government.

He goes on to say, let me ask you something. When has an ally ever threatened major corporations?

American corporations, and said, you will give me this stuff. Or you will be chased out of the country.

Since when doesn't our State Department go down and say, excuse me. Really good friend of Brazil.

We've been there for you, forever. We're helping pay for stuff in your country.

You do not hurt American corporations. You don't tell them, what they can and can't do. When it's in violation of your own doctrines.

PAT: Except that sadly, our American government is behind it.

GLENN: Is behind it.

PAT: Yeah. They're pushing it.

GLENN: It's behind it.

PAT: Yep. Because they're doing the same thing here.

GLENN: Exactly right.

PAT: They can't -- they can't win on the battlefield of ideas. So they have to shut down the battlefield.

GLENN: Correct. And I want you to know, what's happening today in Brazil. The Supreme Court, which was messed with. The Supreme Court now has ultimate power, to do everything. There's no checks or balance there, on the Supreme Court.

So the Supreme Court takes over and says, just, we're going to put people in jail without trial. You don't have a right to speak out. We can tell companies exactly what to do.

And in their hunt for dictators, they have become a dictatorship. That's really important for everyone in America, to understand.

Democracy dies in the darkness. Yet, shut everything down, and keep it real dark.

What's happening in Brazil, is what's coming here if we don't get out and vote.

This is our future, in America.