Trump says he ‘didn’t take sides’ in Brazil’s election three times, and says it ‘looked like another rigged election’

Donald Trump stayed completely neutral on Brazil’s election, and said so three times, with a “rigged” in between.

Asked at Joint Base Andrews on Monday whether the runoff was fair, he said: “Well, it looked terrible to me.” Then: “I didn’t take sides, but it looked like another rigged election, frankly. I didn’t take sides, but it was a terrible look for the world.” And: “You know, elections have to be indisputable, and it looked very bad to me. I didn’t take sides. I didn’t endorse anybody or anything, but I watched the election.” It was, he said, “so, so corrupt.”

Here’s what he was watching. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Sunday’s runoff with about 51.8% to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.2%, a margin of roughly 4.4 million votes, according to AP. Flávio, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for a coup attempt, won’t concede and wants the result annulled over a two-hour extension of voting. AP reports that both campaigns asked for that extension. AP also says Trump offered no evidence. “Another” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. You can probably guess which election he’s counting as the first.

Asked if he’d do anything about it: “Well, I’m not running Brazil. I’m running the USA.” Then: “I like Lula.” Then he said it “had a very bad look,” complained about “the way it was tabulated,” and said “the extension given was very strange.” So he’s neutral, he likes the winner, and he thinks the count was strange. No sides taken.