He’s lived in Brazil for more than a decade, so that’s to be expected. But some expats never move past the order-a-beer phase, and few reach the point where they can talk politics with their adopted country’s head of state.
On Tuesday, Greenwald conducted the first interview with suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff since the Senate brought (bogus) impeachment charges against her last week. At over 20 minutes, the final, subtitled conversation is refreshing, in that it actually seems to privilege a Brazilian audience.
The interview itself is no fluff piece. An adamant critic of the movement to remove Rousseff, Greenwald nonetheless presses the embattled leader about corruption in her Workers’ Party and some of the more questionable decisions of her presidency. But that Greenwald scored the sit-down at all is a deeper affirmation of the editorial approach The Intercept has taken to Brazil’s political crisis.
The online magazine, which Greenwald helped found, has been translating its reporting on the subject into Portuguese—a corrective to what Greenwald and others characterize as the Brazilian media’s doggedly anti-Rousseff bent.