Congressman Ricardo Salles (Novo-SP), a candidate for one of the two Senate seats representing São Paulo, prides himself on being true to his ideals since the beginning of his political career. Founder of the Endireita Brasil group in 2006, he has since defended liberal economic ideas and conservative social values, which have emerged strongly in the country in recent years. Salles served as Minister of the Environment during the first two years of the Bolsonaro administration, one of the main drivers of the conservative agenda in the country.

In the Senate race, the candidate faces strong competition from both sides. On the progressive side, he is vying for one of the two Senate seats against another former Environment Minister, Marina Silva (Rede-SP). On the conservative side, he is competing with federal deputy Guilherme Derrite (PL-SP) and state deputy André do Prado (PL-SP), president of the Legislative Assembly. The latter has been labeled an "intruder" by the Novo party candidate, who considers him a conservative of convenience.

But Prado, like Derrite, has the blessing of the PL presidential candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, as well as Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos-SP). Salles is not intimidated. "André do Prado is easily discredited on the right, due to his entire history of opportunistic alliances," he said.

In this interview with NeoFeed, he criticizes both Trump's tariff hikes and Lula's government for not negotiating more, to prevent Brazil from being at the mercy of China.

During his time as minister, he acknowledges the increase in deforestation and speaks of his change in perception regarding the role of the Armed Forces. "Before becoming minister, I had a more romantic view, and today I have a very critical view," he states, advocating for a review of the institution's role, which should be focused on the border to prevent international trafficking.

A proponent of gun ownership and the classification of Comando Vermelho and PCC as terrorist organizations by the US, he advocates for a permanent dialogue on public security so that the issue can truly move forward. Overcoming the resistance of the left that is hostile to the police, and focusing on the internal contamination of the public security system is a "sine qua non" condition for a good crime-fighting policy.

Following the interview, the Electoral Public Prosecutor's Office requested that the TRE-SP (São Paulo Electoral Court) reject Salles' candidacy registration for the Senate. The allegation is that the candidate did not present a certificate of the ongoing judicial proceedings.

In a statement, Salles said that the certificate presented during the candidacy registration was incomplete due to an error by the registry office, which failed to detail the status of a lawsuit that had been transferred from the state to the federal level. "Therefore, tomorrow, the certificate with the detailed status of the lawsuit will be added."

Below are the main excerpts from the interview, and you can watch the full interview in the video above.

Competition on the right for a Senate seat.

André do Prado is an outsider. Bolsonaro supporters, who are able to understand who he is, dismiss him outright. He doesn't represent, in any way, what the so-called Bolsonaro right wing stands for. I launched my candidacy earlier, even before [Guilherme] Derrite himself, who is my friend. I'm ahead of André do Prado in the relevant polls. I have 20 years of activism on the right. When I founded the Endireita Brasil Movement in 2006, from then on, my entire political trajectory has always followed the same playbook, the same liberal vision on economics, conservative on social issues.

Gun ownership and public safety

I am totally in favor of the right to self-defense, of law-abiding citizens having weapons to defend themselves, because criminals have free rein to carry weapons. You might have the occasional instance of legal weapons falling into the hands of criminals. But the vast majority of weapons used by organized crime come from Paraguay, from foreign countries that send rifles, grenades, machine guns, and everything else here.

"The mentality of the left, in a way, infantilizes the criminal, saying that he is a victim of the social process, and criminalizes the police, saying that they are repressive."

The law-abiding citizen is held hostage by crime. What we have witnessed in the last 20 years, perhaps even more, is that the mentality of the left, in a way, infantilizes the criminal, saying that he is a victim of the social process, and criminalizes the police, saying that they are repressive. This has translated into legislative changes that have made the life of the criminal increasingly comfortable, with easier escape routes and sentence reductions.

No public safety problem has a simple solution. Look at what [President Nayib] Bukele did in El Salvador. Brazil is a continent-sized country, with 210 million people and a completely different culture. But that doesn't mean we can't be inspired by the model of stricter measures against the prison population, as Bukele did.

Or take the zero-tolerance model of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani [between 1994 and 2001]. He needed to clean up the institutions because you really can't enforce the law if the institution itself, responsible for enforcing the rules, is contaminated. And I think that's the big problem with public security in Brazil today. There's an internal contamination of the public security system, which is a sine qua non condition and therefore a prerequisite for having a good crime-fighting policy from the outside in.

Neither "poor thing" nor "release them to kill"

The bandit with a badge is worse than the bandit because he uses the badge to commit crimes. Excesses, when they exist, must be curbed. But we are using excesses as the rule. There needs to be a clear line of what is legal. The dichotomy that has been established prevents a coherent and constructive construction. It's not this "Let's kill everyone" vision. But it's also not a "poor thing" vision. After 14 rapes, nine robberies, and 18 frauds, are we going to try to rebuild this person? We don't have the time or money to keep rehabilitating people who won't recover. In the Senate, there are more reasonable discussions, less heated on both sides.

The Role of the Armed Forces in Security

With 81 senators, you have the capacity to have an effective dialogue, a more serious discussion, both in the Foreign Relations Committee and the National Defense Committee. You will call the commanders of the three Armed Forces and ask them to fulfill their roles. To plant trees and take care of children's teeth in the Amazon, I don't need the Armed Forces. They only know how to demand budget allocations. The mentality of the Brazilian Armed Forces is geared towards that. Either towards megalomaniacal projects that take 30 years to come to fruition, or tasks that are left over, almost childish. I remember the Law and Order Guarantee operation, the first one we carried out in the Bolsonaro government, in August 2019, when the fires were raging in the Amazon.

"To plant trees and take care of children's teeth in the Amazon, I don't need the Armed Forces. All they know how to do is demand funding."

And there were criminal fires. I was the one who had to explain myself. If you want to fight the illegal miner, the illegal logger, the guy who's setting fires, it means taking your rifle, surrounding the guy, and if he shoots at you, shoot him back. To plant trees, we don't need that. That would be their role at the border. Our war isn't in Ukraine, nor in Iran. Our war is daily on the border with Peru, with Bolivia, with Colombia.

Trump's incoherent tariff hike and deforestation

Deforestation is a serious problem in Brazil and stems primarily from the lack of economic alternatives. I'm not going to say it didn't happen during our time, but you have to understand why. We weren't in favor of deforestation. The problem is that, above the environmental discussion, you have to consider the people of the Amazon. You have 26 million Brazilians living in the Amazon without job opportunities or income. Where is this person going to work? You're starving. Is there an opportunity to cut illegal timber? You'll take it.

Then you add to that the influx of organized crime into that region. Trump doesn't care about deforestation. That's nonsense. Why am I taxing you? Because of slave labor? Deforestation? Does anyone believe that Trump, with that group around him, is concerned about any of those things? He used that as a pretext to tax Brazil.

Of course, he has an antipathy towards Lula and the PT. But I think he was going to impose the tariff hike anyway, as he did against practically every country. The degree of consistency is zero. He wanted a negotiation. And the Brazilian government, in this aspect, failed for several reasons. They anticipated that they could take advantage. All nationalism brings votes, even if only fleetingly, because it stirs our pride. It's truly an imposition of a unilateral and unfair tariff, which I, who am right-wing, do not agree with. I am in favor of the free market. There's no way to defend it. This will harm Brazil and it will harm the United States as well.

"Eduardo Bolsonaro's initial attitude was to put the ball at Lula's feet for the goal, and he shot. Then he [Eduardo] realized the mistake he made and changed his position."

Interference from the Bolsonaros and China

Eduardo Bolsonaro's initial attitude was like putting the ball at Lula's feet for the goal, and he kicked it. Then he [Eduardo] realized the mistake he made and changed his position. He celebrated the tariff increase, just like Tarcísio put on a Trump hat.

I don't think that influenced the tariff hike at all. Trump was going to impose the tariff hike on Brazil, with or without Eduardo. The Americans, cleverly, gave it this ideological veneer of persecution, Bolsonaro and all that.

If the Brazilian government's dialogue with the Americans had been: 'Look, on this issue here, regarding these industries in sectors A, B, and C, we're in this together with China. I'll bring in some American technology at the expense of Chinese technology. Let's join forces here to put a brake on China.' But we didn't need to bend over backwards even further. The Brazilian negotiation should have been more careful, more collaborative, and not as it was.

The Senate and the impeachment of Supreme Court justices.

I think it's not a question of defending or not [impeachment of Supreme Court justices]. It's an instrument that is provided for in the Constitution and is the practical consequence of a crime of responsibility committed by Supreme Court justices. Now, look how interesting this is. I'm a lawyer by training and I have many criminal lawyer friends, most of them left-leaning. When, during Lava Jato, they criticized the operation, [former judge Sergio] Moro, they criticized [then former prosecutor] Deltan Dallagnol for disrespecting due process.

Let's jump to the events of January 8th. Of course, these are different situations, but the same criticisms of the absence of rebuttal, of the failure to observe due process, are absolutely pertinent criticisms in the history of January 8th, the coup, and everything else. I made this digression because, regarding the process of investigating crimes of responsibility, what wasn't done must be done: strictly observe due process, the right to a full defense, and the right to a fair hearing. This is so you can set an example, including for the pacification of society. The left was outraged when Lula was being arrested. The right was outraged when Bolsonaro was arrested. And then there's this selective indignation. I advocate that the Senate set an example of respect for due process, the right to a full defense, and the right to a fair hearing.

"The left was outraged when Lula was being arrested. The right was outraged when Bolsonaro was arrested. And so this selective outrage remains."

Attempted coup

I acknowledge that a colonel [actually, retired General Mário Fernandes] and half a dozen other military officers devised a completely absurd plan, the so-called Green and Yellow Dagger [which involved assassinating authorities]. I dare say it was the most ridiculous thing in the world; none of the measures contemplated were implemented.

I'm not defending this. But I guarantee: at an MST meeting, at a PSOL meeting, if you put a little fly there to listen, the mildest thing you'll hear is people saying they're going to grab Bolsonaro and cut his head off.

You see the level of childishness of these military men. The guy makes a plan, even puts names down. If the Brazilian generals wanted to stage a coup and were truly brave people—not this bunch I mentioned at the beginning, concerned only with salary, bonuses, and drivers—they would have surrounded the Supreme Court, put all the troops around it, arrested everyone, and that would be it. But that's not a coup. The woman who put lipstick on the statue gets 14 years in prison. What kind of business is this? What kind of country are we living in?

Ricardo Salles vs. Marina Silva

We have very different backgrounds. Marina from Acre has a perspective on the history of the forest, of the Amazon. Basically, she talks about two things: the Amazon rainforest and climate change.

I'm a guy from São Paulo, close to the private sector. I'm a lawyer for several companies, from different segments of the economy. I grew up, studied, and live in São Paulo. My vision is the importance of the private sector for many things, including environmental care. What is the biggest environmental problem in Brazil for me? The biggest urban environmental issue is the lack of sewage treatment and poor waste management, that is, solid waste. Marina doesn't care about this issue at all.

He did nothing, neither to solve the problem of lack of sewage treatment in Brazil, nor the garbage problem; quite the opposite. When I was Secretary of the Environment in São Paulo, during Geraldo Alckmin's government, I created a program called Zero Landfill. We were faced with a situation where 111 out of 645 municipalities had poor garbage disposal situations, and we created the Zero Landfill program.

"The biggest urban environmental issue is the lack of sewage treatment and poor waste management, that is, solid waste management. Marina doesn't care about that issue at all."

When I became minister, I did the same thing, the Zero Landfill program throughout Brazil. We went from over 1000 to 500. And the Legal Framework for Sanitation, for those in the financial market, is a great opportunity.

Congress approved it with the left voting against. Marina's party voted against the legal framework, as did the PT and PSOL. Even so, it passed. It started attracting investment. It created Cedae (Rio de Janeiro's State Water and Sewage Company, privatized in 2021). Do you remember the Olympics (2016)? Nobody wanted to swim in Guanabara Bay. The amount of sewage there… Cedae was a success. Then Lula's government began, and Mr. [Minister of the Civil House] Rui Costa, representing the lobby of public employees of the sanitation company in Bahia, convinced Lula to sign a decree practically annihilating the Framework, not as a norm, but in terms of content, because the law stipulates that all regulation is done by decree.

What does Ms. Marina Silva say against Mr. Lula's destruction of the legal framework? Nothing. Not a single word. Luckily, we in the Chamber of Deputies, in Congress, passed a PDL, a Legislative Decree Project, annulling Lula's decree. This resulted in the recent privatization of Sabesp and Copasa in Minas Gerais.