Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday (August 23) threatened to punch a reporter repeatedly in the mouth. And you must be wondering why the Brazilian President wanted to smash the journalist's face.
What exactly happened!
The reporter asked the Brazilian President about his wife's links to an alleged corruption scheme.
Following the question, here's what Jair Bolsonaro had to say.
"I so want to pound your mouth with punches," the far-right president said when a reporter from O Globo, posed the question.
The reporter was part of a group that met Bolsonaro after his regular Sunday visit to the Metropolitan Cathedral in Brasilia. The president ignored protests from other journalists after the remarks and left without making further comments.
The O Globo reporter asked about a report in the magazine Crusoe linking First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro to Fabricio Queiroz, a retired police officer, friend of the president, and former adviser to her son Flavio Bolsonaro, who is now a senator.
Queiroz and Flavio Bolsonaro are under investigation for a scheme that allegedly swindled pay from government employees when the younger Bolsonaro was a regional lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro, and before Jair Bolsonaro became president in January 2019.
According to the magazine, Queiroz deposited funds in Michelle Bolsonaro's bank account between 2011 and 2016.
The first lady has said nothing about the case.
Soon after the president's outburst O Globo issued a statement repudiating his "aggression ... towards a journalist from our newspaper that was carrying out his job in a professional manner."
Such intimidation "shows that Jair Bolsonaro does not acknowledge the duty of a public servant ... to be accountable to the public."
Brazil coronavirus updates
Meanwhile, Brazil registered 494 new coronavirus deaths, the lowest single-day fatalities since May 31.
According to the Ministry of Health, Sunday's figure took the total death toll to 114,744, reports Xinhua news agency.
In the same 24-hour period, tests detected 23,421 new cases of infection, bringing the total caseload to 3,605,783.
With the new tallies, Brazil currently accounts for the second-highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the world, just after the US.
(With agency inputs)
