Brazil President Bolsonaro: Celebrities Talk About Amazon Rainforest Because ‘It’s Trendy’

Thursday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said celebrity critics, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, were critical of his country’s handling of the Amazonian rainforest because they were participating in what he called a “fad.”

Bolsonaro told host Tucker Carlson that the Amazonian region was in good shape compared to the past.

“Well, if I do bother or become concerned about all of the criticism I get, I would not be able to work,” he said, according to a translator. “Of course, no one likes to be criticized. But these are people who do not understand anything about Brazil. I think these people have never been to the Amazon region. And I would actually invite them to come to the Amazon region and overfly the region. And they will see an outstanding region. They will be able to overfly it. You will see no fire outbreak.”

“They will not see the devastated areas. I mean, they talk about the Amazon region because it’s trendy. It’s a fad. I mean, in Europe, if someone says that the Amazon region is not being devastated, they are politically doomed to fiasco. So, it’s politically good for them. The criticism yields power. It yields media visibility, yields votes. And that’s what celebrities feed off. They’re not at all familiar with the Amazon region. They are not at all knowledgeable about the region and the difficulty of investing in it. They just criticize it because it’s a fad.”

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