CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked if America’s newest export is election denialism after supporters of defeated former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in a chilling echo of the Donald Trump-incited U.S. Capitol riot of 2021.
“We used to talk about, and many folks still imagine this and perhaps it’s true to some extent, that the U.S. exports democracy,” Sciutto told former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) on Monday’s broadcast of “Newsroom.”
“But as you watch this and how it was ceded by the losing candidate in that election, who had a lot of rapport, one might say, with Donald Trump, is election denialism a new U.S. export?” Sciutto said.
“We’re the world’s oldest democracy. The rest of the world watches us. Clearly, the rest of the world watched us on Jan. 6,” Walsh responded.
The former congressman, who has become a fierce critic of Trump and MAGA Republicanism, said the former president and the GOP haven’t really paid a price for what happened in 2021. “My fear is that this is something that fledgling democracies around the world are learning from us,” he added.
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