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Barbara Boyd opens with Sunday's first round in Brazil, where Flávio Bolsonaro took 47.03% to President Lula da Silva's 45.16%, a result London's Guardian called a shock, ahead of the October 25 runoff. She traces the battle for Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro's narrow defeat in 2022, the January 8, 2023 riots in Brasília, his 2025 conviction in a case overseen by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio's response, and the Bolsonaro family's gains in Sunday's vote, set against the nationalist wins across Latin America that she ties to the administration's revival of the Monroe Doctrine and the shutdown of USAID. She also looks at China's place as Brazil's biggest customer and at who owns Petrobras. The episode then turns to Sparrows Point in Baltimore County, Maryland, once the world's largest steel mill, where President Trump launched Anduril's $3.7 billion Arsenal-2 shipyard on Tuesday, building components for the Navy's Virginia-class submarines with 3,100 permanent jobs. It closes with Mike Benz, speaking with Benny Johnson, on why financier cartels profit when the state runs the economy, from Big Pharma to climate finance, and Chamath Palihapitiya on why Barack Obama is pushing Democrats toward government regulation of AI.
00:00 Midweek Update Intro
01:55 The Epic Battle for Brazil
06:39 Sparrows Point Lives Again
10:12 Why Would Capitalists Support Socialism and Communism?
Credits
Photos
- Lula and Fidel Castro, Havana, 1980: Delfim Martins/Agência F4, via Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lula_e_Fidel_Castro_em_Havana,_Cuba,_em_1980.jpg)
- Jair Bolsonaro, 2020, and Michelle Bolsonaro, 2019: U.S. Embassy Brasília, public domain (flickr.com/photos/embaixadaeua-brasil)
- Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump, 2019: Getty Images, via BBC News
- National Congress, January 8, 2023: security camera, CPMI 8 de Janeiro final report (Senado Federal), public domain
- Alexandre de Moraes, Viviane Barci de Moraes and Lula, January 1, 2023: Ricardo Stuckert/PR, CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), flickr.com/photos/palaciodoplanalto/52621635701, cropped
- Carlos Bolsonaro, 2022: Alan Santos/PR, CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), flickr.com/photos/palaciodoplanalto/51884655852, cropped
- Jair Renan Bolsonaro, 2021: TOGURO (youtube.com/watch?v=vHdmseDnrEU), CC BY 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), cropped
- Liberty ship launch, Kaiser Shipyards: Louis Lee, National Park Service, public domain
Video
- President Trump at Sparrows Point, October 6, 2026: The White House, public domain
- Mike Benz on The Benny Show, October 5, 2026 (x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/2107198915506499684)
- Chamath Palihapitiya on the All-In Podcast, September 26, 2026 (youtube.com/watch?v=cvP_1jmnkmM)
- Stock footage: Storyblocks
Articles and posts quoted: The Guardian (October 5, 2026); BBC News (March 20, 2019); Reuters (August 8, 2021); WYPR (October 6, 2026); BuildSubmarines.com (December 6, 2024; photo: Elonte Davis); on X: @SecRubio, @TheLastRefuge2, @PalmerLuckey, @anduriltech, @MikeBenzCyber
Maps and data: Natural Earth (public domain); election results from AS/COA, Axios, AP, NPR, MercoPress, Michigan Public and Brazil's TSE; exports from Comex Stat (MDIC); Petrobras fact sheet (December 2025) and notice of May 21, 2026 (via CNN Brasil)
