What's wrong with the Brazilian Congress

What's wrong with the Brazilian Congress

Author: The Brazilian Report August 20, 2026 Duration: 43:50
Brazil's 2026 campaign is officially underway, and almost all the attention will be on the presidential race. That's a problem, because power in Brazil is increasingly won and lost in Congress — where the budget is controlled and where any president's ...

Explaining Brazil is a weekly conversation that cuts through the noise of headlines to provide clear, grounded context on the country's most pressing issues. Produced by the team at The Brazilian Report, this podcast leverages their on-the-ground presence and independent editorial stance to offer analysis that feels both immediate and deeply informed. Each episode focuses on a single topic-whether a sudden political shift, a complex economic policy, or a defining cultural moment-and unpacks its history, its key players, and its likely consequences. You'll hear discussions that connect the dots between Brasília's corridors of power, the trading floors of São Paulo, and the realities of daily life across the nation. The goal isn't just to tell you what's happening, but to explain why it matters and how it fits into the larger Brazilian story. For anyone doing business in the region, studying its dynamics, or simply trying to understand one of the world's most captivating countries, Explaining Brazil provides essential listening. It’s a direct line to nuanced perspectives that are often missing from international coverage, making each episode a valuable briefing on the forces shaping Brazil's present and future.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Explaining Brazil
Podcast Episodes
How to read Brazil's  election polls [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:09
Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro are statistically tied less than two weeks before Brazil's first round, and a flood of contradictory polls is feeding claims that pollsters are rigging the race. Rafael Nishimura, director of sa…
Can Brazil's Supreme Court survive an election? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:02
For years, Brazil's Supreme Court picked fights with Congress and the presidency. This month it turned on itself. On September 15, the full court sat for more than seven hours to answer a question it has dodged for 130 y…
Civil war at the Brazilian Supreme Court [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:03
Brazil's Supreme Court is facing what may be the worst crisis in its history. Justice André Mendonça unsealed the Banco Master investigation, exposing messages between the bank's former CEO and Justice Alexandre de Morae…
The first surprise of the 2016 election [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:03
Two polls released Monday shook the political establishment. Augusto Cury, of the small Avante party, took third place in both: 11% in Nexus's survey, 7.8% in Atlas Intel's. The numbers force rivals and analysts to take…
A visa, a snub, and a reopened wound [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:39
The US State Department revoked the visa of Brazil's ambassador to Washington ( https://newsletters.brazilian.report/p/us-brazil-ambassador-viotti-argentina-russia-putin ) and said the quiet part out loud: it is retaliat…
Brazilian trade: Life after Washington [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:23
The US now takes less than 10% of Brazil's exports — the smallest share in decades — and Washington's tariff wall is accelerating a realignment that was already underway. Gustavo Ribeiro speaks with trade consultant Welb…
An imported playbook for Brazil's elections [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:40
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro used his turn at Debating Brazil — an event series in which Brazilian presidential candidates present their vision of the country to foreign ambassadors — to revive discredited claims about elect…
Flávio Bolsonaro has a few problems to deal with [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:18
On this episode of Explaining Brazil, Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report, talks with James Green, a historian at Brown University, about the fracturing landscape of Brazil's 2026 presidential race.…
Brazil's crime syndicates are now terrorist organizations [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:41
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated the Comando Vermelho (Red Command, or CV) and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital, or PCC) as foreign terrorist organizations. The Brazilian Report's…
Lula meets Trump in Washington [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:29
Editor-in-chief Gustavo Ribeiro sat down with historian James N. Green to unpack Lula's recent meeting with Donald Trump. While the visit yielded no concrete trade breakthroughs, it has been cast as a diplomatic victory,…