As a Brazilian journalist living in Argentina, Luciana Taddeo says she spends ever-more effort rebutting ever-crazier rumors.
Bolsonaro and his allies had long used another leftist neighbor — crisis-wracked Venezuela — as a cautionary tale, but shifted to Argentina after Fernández defeated center-right President Mauricio Macri — whom Bolsonaro favored — in 2019.
“Paying for lunch in Argentina,” he wrote on his Instagram account. “If you don’t want this for Brazil, vote Bolsonaro.” “The strange thing is that instead of focusing on the real problems that there are already so many of in Argentina, they have to exaggerate even more the situation, which is already serious,” Taddeo said.
The woman who helped make the original empty-shelves video, 25-year-old Maria Laura Assis, pushed back against claims she was spreading falsehoods about Argentina to help Bolsonaro’s campaign.