♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to G "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

And today, Brazil's uncertain future.

Latin America's largest economy has been through quite a lot in the past few years, more than its share, really, from the worst ever economic recession in Brazil to an Amazon literally on fire.

And, of course, the disastrous, one of the world's worst, COVID-19 pandemic experiences.

And at the country's helm is Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist president facing a very uncertain re-election campaign next year.

I'm talking to a man who once sat in that hot seat himself, former Brazilian President Henrique Cardoso.

Then a look at poverty and hunger in Brazil only made worse by the pandemic.

Don't worry.

I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> It seems like things are not going great.

Are you worried?

>> Ha!

What do you mean?

Things are going fantastic.

>> But first a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> They call him the Trump of the tropics.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, president, who secured a huge victory in 2018, winning his election with more than 55% of the vote in a deeply polarized nation.

And indeed, Bolsonaro and Trump became fast friends, even dining together at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

Bolsonaro's campaign echoed Trump's own run in 2016.

He had his own "drain the swamp" take on fighting crime and corruption, controversial views, to say the least, on women and the LGBT community, deep support for and from Brazil's military.

But since his inauguration in 2019, Bolsonaro has faced and at times created one huge fire after another.

First, the economy.

Brazil still feeling the impact of its worst ever recession, which began in 2014.

Bolsonaro promised to turn that around.

But economic growth in Brazil remains low and unemployment very high.

Then you've got actual fires raging in the Amazon during Brazil's dry season.

Rapid deforestation accounts for one third of the destruction of the world's tropical forests in 2019 alone.

President Trump was willing to look the other way on this environmental tragedy.

He was kind of a climate skeptic himself, but the Biden administration, not so much.

And finally, the COVID pandemic.

Bolsonaro's handling of the biggest public health crisis of our lifetimes has been disastrous, one of the world's worst.

He downplayed the severity, refused to support mask wearing, mishandled the vaccine rollout.

As the pandemic took hold, Bolsonaro offered an emergency stipend in Brazil to temporarily help the country's poorest citizens.

But 55% of the Brazilian population faced food insecurity in 2020.

About twice as many Brazilians went hungry last year than the number in 2018 before Bolsonaro was elected.

And hunger remains a huge problem.

Bolsonaro is up for re-election next year, and it's going to be an incredibly interesting and divisive campaign.

The likely challenger is Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Just call him Lula.

Everyone else does.

He's as far left as Bolsonaro is right.

Bolsonaro got elected in 2018 as an alternative to 14 years of rule by Lula's Workers' Party.

Now, Bolsonaro will be able to run against Lula directly.

Will the Trump of the tropics see his political fortunes cool down?

It's hard to say because this is where the whole Trump-Bolsonaro comparison comes to a screeching halt.

The United States is a two-party system.

Brazil has around two dozen political parties, making consensus building for both candidates far more complicated.

How does Brazil recover from this devastating pandemic?

And what's on the political horizon in 2022?

I sat down with a guy who knows a thing or two about getting elected in Brazil.

He did it twice.

In fact, he was the first Brazilian president ever to win re-election, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Here is our conversation.

President Cardoso, so happy to welcome you on "GZERO World."

You know, we've been watching your country as it's gone through an incredibly difficult period with coronavirus, as well as an incredibly difficult period with the economy, the worst recession of Brazil's history.

For us, it feels like this has been very badly managed by your government.

Is that the way it feels for you on the ground right now?

And my country, of course, has been a very divided, a very polarized country for lots of reasons we've spoken about on this show.

Your country increasingly feels very divided as well.

They call Bolsonaro the Trump of the tropics.

Former President Lula is his opposite in many ways.

The country feels very divided, very politically angry.

There's a lot of fake news, a lot of disinformation.

Why is there so much political hatred and disgust in Brazil right now?

Now, I see the polls right now, of course, are showing that Lula would win if there was such a match.

But right now is the depth economically and the pandemic.

The election's not till next year.

It's hard to imagine.

When you saw Lula, I mean, this is a man who, of course, had been convicted.

He was under house arrest, massive corruption scandal.

Now, does he feel -- when you saw him, did he feel completely vindicated?

Does he feel like he is a man of destiny?

What was his personality like at the time?

How is he doing right now?

I want to ask you a broader question about Brazil's democracy.

I mean, with the years of the corruption scandals, are we starting to see -- Never mind the political divide, but are we seeing the erosion of Brazil's democracy more broadly?

Is that happening in your mind?

My country, of course, Trump lost the election.

He was incapable of admitting that he lost the election, did everything he could to delegitimize that has caused a lot of damage for the Republicans and the U.S. if Bolsonaro were to lose -- and I know it's close -- Is he capable of admitting that he lost an election?

You're the most important living political figure in Brazil.

Is it strange for you that Bolsonaro has never reached out to meet with you personally?

So let me ask you another question that wasn't around to the degree that it is today when you were president, and that's climate.

You know, Brazil also in the news in the last year and will be again with all of these forest fires and the clear-cutting of the Amazon forest and, you know, an issue that really has set Brazil apart from a lot of the rest of the world.

How do you see that issue?

How do you see the rest of the world coming to Brazil now and saying you're not being responsible, you need to do more?

Before we close, tell me a little bit about how you see Brazil's role in the world with the United States and with China.

Increasingly hard to manage both of those relationships.

And I wonder where you think it's going right now.

What's the thing that surprises you the most about the world today that you had no idea would end up like this when you were president?

President Cardoso, thank you so much for joining me on the show.

So that was the big-picture look at the political scene in Brazil today.

But what has life been like for the most vulnerable people there here?

A report from one favela outside of Brazil's capital.

>> [ Rapping in Portuguese ] >> Now it's time for something a little lighter -- "Puppet Regime."

as we told you, Brazil engulfed in one crisis after another and it's starting to take its toll on puppet President Bolsonaro.

Yeah, yeah, we're going there.

>> "Puppet Regime"!

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week, and if you like what you see, you want more Brazil coverage, you don't want more Brazil coverage, you want coverage of other countries, we can do that too.

check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...