Latest / The Real News Podcast / Fernando Cerimedo: Revealing Trump's Election Interference in Latin America

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Fernando Cerimedo: Revealing Trump's Election Interference in Latin America · The Real News Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Fernando Cerimedo, a name that unless you follow Latin America closely,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: you likely have never heard.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: He's been called MAGA's man in Latin America, and he's
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: at the heart of a shocking.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Scandal in Latin America. that includes election rigging, fake news, disinformation,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and powerful political ties to far-right presidents across Latin America
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and even the White House under Donald Trump. It's big
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: news in Latin America, even though it's been largely under
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the radar in the United States. Until now.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: What the prosecutor asks is if Cerimedo was part of
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: an official structure that facilitated.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The scandal has dire implications for the legitimacy of elections
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: up and down the Americas, including elections where U.S. President
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been throwing his weight around over the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: last year. Elections where right-wingers have won close but shocking victories.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Like lawyer Abelardo de la Estrella's right-wing defeat of the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: leftist candidate Iván Cepeda in Colombia in June, he won
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: by less than 1% of the vote.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: He called me at 8.30 in the evening just to
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: thank me very much.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: And I said, you ran a great campaign. He said,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: El Tigre, right?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: And what do you anticipate for the relation with Colombia?
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Much better.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: He's going to be a great president.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And big elections are coming up in Brazil and elsewhere.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We begin here. That's him, Fernando Serimedo, walking down a
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: hallway lined with people ahead of Chile's new far-right president,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Antonio Cast. Cerimedo puts a hand on his back and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: ushers him into a side room to meet with a
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: group of men in suits. Cerimedo is a 45-year-old strategist
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and publicist from Argentina. He's a co-founder of the right-wing
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Argentine outlet La Derecha Diario, and in recent years, he's
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: become perhaps the most prominent political consultant for the far-right
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: in Latin America. But as we will see in this episode,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: he's much more than a consultant. I think you could
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: call him an election fixer, and not in a democratic way.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So you've had this sort of network of far-right leaders
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: who've shown a lot of affinity for one another, right,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: or traveling to each other's countries, supporting each other, this
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: sort of broad network. And behind that, right, there's been
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: this sort of digital infrastructure that is built out to
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: support this sort of new wave of far-right leaders in
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Latin America.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I asked Jake Johnston from the Center for Economic and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Policy Research to set the scene here.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you've spent any time on social media,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: you have seen the bots. You've potentially been attacked by
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: the bots, right? You see this happening every day and
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: you've seen it in all of these elections, many of which,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: it should be noted, were extraordinarily close elections, right? I mean,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: less than one percentage point separating the winner from the loser.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: And throughout this last year, year and a half, there
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: has been one very prominent person sort of parading around
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: the hemisphere and claiming credit for a lot of these
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: electoral wins. And it's just this guy, an Argentine political
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: consultant who used to drive, apparently used to drive a
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: taxi in Argentina and has sort of risen to the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: top of the food chain in Latin American politics. It's
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Fernando Ceramido.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Here is the reason why we're all talking about him
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: right now. Last month, on August 18th, 2026, Cerimedo was
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: arrested at Bolivia's Viru Viru airport after attempting to board
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was accused of
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: ordering a hit on his pregnant girlfriend. Her name is
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Nadia Beller. She's a Bolivian lawyer and a political analyst.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: She's a former supporter of leftist President Evo Morales, turned
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: staunch critic. She was shot three times by two armed
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: gunmen the day before, outside of a hotel in the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Bolivian lowland capital city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: That's the heart of Bolivia's agricultural heartland, and one of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the most conservative regions in the country. She survived. From
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: her hospital room, she asked to speak to press. This
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: is the video. You can find it online. She's laying
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: in a hospital bed, the back slightly raised, so she's
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: kind of sitting up. She wears a white and gray
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: striped hospital gown. She has several bandages, and she's attached
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: to some machines. She sounds exhausted. I've requested the presence
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of DTV to make a live statement because they tried
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to silence me, she says. And I'm absolutely sure that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: if I don't speak out to the Bolivian people, they're
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: going to finish what they tried to do today. They
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: are going to end my life. She speaks for 15
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: minutes about her relationship with Fernando Cerimedo, about his physical abuse,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: his cheating on her and others, and then she reveals
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: dirt on Cerimedo and his underhanded political dealings across the region,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: including in high, high places. She discusses Seremedo's ties to
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Trump's former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, referring to Parscale as
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a member of the CIA. She describes her personal knowledge
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of corruption committed by Cerimedo and Bolivia's new right-wing president,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Rodrigo Paz, and his family. Paz is the eldest son
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: of the former Bolivian president, Jaime Paz Zamora. He was
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: born in Spain, went to college in the United States,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and Fernando Cerimedo helped to lift him into the presidency
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: last year.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Because the government is the main one interested in silencing
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Rodrigo Paz.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: The government is the main one interested in silencing me,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: she says. Rodrigo Paz, his wife, his family, they make
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the biggest deals with the brokers, with all of the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: insurance companies, of all the state companies. They are the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: ones who negotiate the broker's commission. Do you have proof
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: of all that? asked the man interviewing her behind the camera.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I have proof of many extremes, she says. She also
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: details Cerimedo's power in Bolivia and abroad. Rodrigo Paz does
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: not govern here, she says. Fernando Cerimedo governs, and they
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: will absolutely cover it. He manages a group of the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: police that supposedly operates around the hotel where he made
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: me go. That was the hotel where she was shot.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: All of this.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: is just the tip of the iceberg. About Cerimedo, the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: disinformation campaign he concocted, and the right-wing election wins, he
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: had a large hand in securing across the region.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: This is a door that is opening to a world
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: that has largely been closed. I think that's the interesting
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: part about this. It's like, what does this tell us
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: about the broader infrastructure that exists in the region and
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: likely elsewhere across the globe? that is using digital sort
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: of shock troops, bots, disinformation, media polarization to try and
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: skew electoral outcomes, even at the margins, where it might
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: have a tremendously large impact, even if the operation itself
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: seems sort of small.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: All of that in a minute. This is Under the Shadows.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: an investigative narrative podcast series that looks at the role
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of the United States abroad in the past and the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: very present. This podcast is a co-production in partnership with
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: The Real News and NACLA. I'm your host, Michael Fox,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist, the producer and host of
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the podcast Brazil on Fire, Stories of Resistance, and my
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: new series, The Battle for Free Speech. I've spent the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: better part of the last 20 years in Latin America,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I've seen firsthand the role of the U.S. government abroad,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and most often, sadly, it is not for the better. Invasions, coups, sanctions,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: support for authoritarian regimes. Politically and economically, the United States
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: has cast a long shadow over Latin America for the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: past 200 years. It still does. This is season two
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of Under the Shadow, Trump's Attack, episode 14, Fernando Cerimedo.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: It's February 10th this year. A passionate man is speaking
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: in Spanish on a stage in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. This is
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Trump's Hispanic Prosperity Gala. The back wall of the stage
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: is plastered with a logo of a bull's head and
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the words Latino Wall Street, a Spanish-language financial website. The
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: name of the man on stage is Eduardo Bolsonaro, the
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: son of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro and brother of
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the current far-right presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro. Eduardo resigned as
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a member of Congress in 2025 and moved to the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: United States after he came under investigation for trying to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: pressure the Supreme Court in defense of his father, who
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: is now on house arrest for coup plotting. The Bolsonaro
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: family are close allies of President Trump, and Eduardo Bolsonaro
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: has close ties with Trump's former campaign manager, Steve Bannon.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Fernando Cerimedo used the data from the Superior Electoral Court
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: On stage, Eduardo Bolsonaro is praising Fernando Cerimedo. They've reportedly
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: known each other for years, since 2010 when they met
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: in the United States. Eduardo invites Cerimedo to the podium.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So I have the great pleasure, a great honor, he says,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to call here on the stage Fernando Cerimedo, a brave Argentine,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: who had the courage to denounce the bad things that
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: happen in the world. Eduardo Bolsonaro presents Fernando Cerimedo with
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the award for Best Hispanic Political Consultant of the Year.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Cerimedo is wearing a black suit, white shirt, black tie.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: He has a bald head. Fernando and Eduardo embrace, and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: then they pose for the cameras with the tiny statues. Then,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Cerimedo walks.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: To the podium.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: 2025 was a very good year for us. Together with
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: our team, we won two elections, he says, Bolivia and Honduras.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Cerimedo also gives a shout-out to the Bolivian First Lady
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and her daughter, who he says are in the audience.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Cerimedo then turns and thanks his connection with the Trump administration.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: I want to say something in English. Thank you, Brad Parscale,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: for believing in me all the time and giving me
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: your technology. And Tim Dunn for the fighting in Latin
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: America against socialism. Thank you, Brad.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Tim Dunn is a Trump-allied businessman from Texas. He's in
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: oil and gas. And he's a big financial supporter of
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: conservative causes. As for Brad Parscale, if you remember, Sede
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Medo's girlfriend mentioned him in her hospital interview. She said
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: he was tied to U.S. intelligence. He is a digital
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: consultant with deep ties to the White House and Mar-a-Lago.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: He ran digital media for both Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Since 2025, he's been the chief strategy officer at the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: right-wing Christian conservative media corporation Salem Media Group. In May,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: The Intercept reported that he had been hired by the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Israeli government to push pro-Israeli views over conservative media. Cerimedo
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: closes his acceptance speech. The message I want to give
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you is that it's not about winning elections, he told
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the audience. That can even seem easy. If we don't
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: help our candidates govern so that the left never returns
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to those governments, our work will never be finished. So
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: let's keep fighting the cultural battle. That's not just winning
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: elections and taking positions. It's battling every day to be
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: able to regain freedom in Latin America. Thank you all
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: very much, and good night, he said. Fernando Cerimedo. This
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: guy is no ordinary political consultant. The things he has
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: done that helped him win that award, presented by Trump
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: allies in Mar-a-Lago, have included using underhanded, dirty, and other
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: illegal means to help his candidates win elections. Candidates who
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: are all right-wing or far-right Trump allies. And look, he
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: allegedly even tried to kill his own girlfriend to silence her.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Seri Medu is just one man, but he's part of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a much broader network. And for them, pushing their agenda
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: is not politics as usual within democratic systems. As Cedimedo
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: mentioned at that awards ceremony, this is a culture war,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and they are fighting to win by any means necessary.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It all calls into question many of these victories that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the right has been winning across Latin America in recent years.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Jake Johnston.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: But of course, he's not operating alone, right? And his
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: business partner in this company, Newman Advisors, which was actually
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: first registered in Florida, is... Brad Parscale, who is Trump's
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: former campaign manager. And, you know, the way that it
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: has been described, and Saramedo has given some interviews on
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: this in the past, right, is that Parscale provides the
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: sort of digital infrastructure that was implemented in the United
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: States during Trump's election, and is sort of exporting that
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to the region. And the connection to all of these
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: far-right Latin American leaders in these networks between Parscale and
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: them is Fernando Saramedo.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Jake says that a key mouthpiece of this right-wing network
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: has been La Derecha Diario, a right-wing news and opinion
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: site founded by Cerimedo and two of his colleagues around
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the year 2020. La Derecha Diario is now partially owned
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: by Javier Negre, a Spanish right-wing media entrepreneur and disinformation broker.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Now, in parallel to this, you've had this sort of
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: digital media outlet, La Derecha Diario, that has sort of
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: risen to prominence as big promoters of the new far
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: right in Latin America, you know, sort of classic disinformation
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: campaigns and things like this, but always sort of in
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: support of these candidates. And they've been extremely active, you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: in a number of these electoral races and have sort
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: of begun to expand both in Mexico and certainly are
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: looking at Brazil. And Saramedo was also a partial owner
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: of that operation. And of course, this is this is
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: nothing new.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, this network of sort of right wing political
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: operatives has been extremely active in Spain and Europe, but
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: also in Latin America for any number of years.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Going back decades and following a lot of these these
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: folks work. What's changed is that they now have an
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: administration in Washington that is directly supporting the same agenda.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Found out in Chile, the person I endorsed who was
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: not leading ended up winning quite easily. So I look
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: forward to paying my respects to him. I hear he's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a very good person.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: And so that has sort of elevated it to a
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: different level and certainly sort of just put a lot
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: of money in the pockets of a lot of people
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: who have an interest in promoting sort of this new
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: far right in Latin America.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: The other thing is that we don't actually know the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: true extent of everything. We have clues. Many are really concerning,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: but not all the dots connect. Just remember that as
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: we continue. It's been reported that Cerimedo has had a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: role in the political victories of the right and far
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: right in at least seven countries over the last four years,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Bolivia and Peru. That
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: is not a bad record. The first place I want
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to visit, though, came before all of those in Brazil
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: in late 2022. It's election night, October 30th, 2022. Former
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva wins the vote
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: by a slim margin, defeating Trump ally and incumbent far-right
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: President Jair Bolsonaro in a huge victory for the left.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: But the next morning... Bolsonaro supporters hit the streets in protest.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: claiming the election was stolen, a claim Bolsonaro himself had
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: spread ahead of the vote. They shut down highways. They
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: set up vigils in front of military barracks, demanding that
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the country's armed forces rise up to overturn the results.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Amid this chaos, Jair Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who we
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: heard from earlier, is interviewed by a right-wing Argentine media outlet,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: where he spreads lies about Brazil's electoral system. The interview
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: was aired just three days before the vote. According to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: news reports at the time, the video had a live
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: audience of more than 400,000 viewers. I remember this. It
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: was a big deal. Because what Eduardo Bolsonaro did was
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: actually illegal in Brazil. You can't disparage the country's electoral system,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: particularly just days before the vote. That's why Eduardo Bolsonaro
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: did the live in Argentina. Anyway, what most of us
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: only realized recently is that the guy who interviewed Eduardo
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro during that live was Fernando Serimedo, and that outlet
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: was Serimedo's La Derecha Diario. You can think of it
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: as something akin to the Breitbart of Argentina. That live,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I'd been looking for it to play a clip here,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: but it was taken down shortly afterwards in Brazil. It
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: still had a wide reach, though. It was shared across
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: WhatsApp groups and far-right media spheres. It reportedly played a
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: significant role in undermining the election result and intensifying the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: widespread protests by Bolsonaro supporters in the wake of the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: 2022 elections. All of this stoking of Bolsonaro's base would,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of course, culminate in the January 8th, 2023 invasion of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Brazil's capital by Bolsonaro supporters. They wreaked havoc, causing millions
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of dollars of property damage in Congress and the Supreme
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Court in a copycat performance of the January 6th U.S.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: capital invasion in 2021. There was pushback against La Derecha
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Diario in Brazil.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: And because of that live broadcasting and because of Seremedo's
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: intervention after Lula has won, actually the Brazilian electoral justice
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: decided to suspend La Derecha Diario's account in social media.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: because it identified that it was a source of falsehoods
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: and rumors that had been extensively dismissed by the Brazilian authorities.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Maria Marta Bruno is a journalist at Agência Pública, the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: largest non-profit investigative newsroom in Brazil. That outlet did an
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: in-depth investigation in 2023 into the so-called digital militias, And
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the use of Internet, bots, disinformation, fake news and media
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: manipulation to sway opinions and elections across Latin America.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: And the investigation is named the digital mercenaries. And Fernando
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Sinemido is a core figure in this ecosystem because he
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: orbited between Brazil, Argentina, and more recently, we knew that
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: he was also participating in the electoral process in Honduras
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: in 2025.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Maria Marta says Agencia Pública actually spoke with Cerimedo for
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: their report.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: But Fernando Cerimedo, when he talked to Agencia Pública and
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: to our partners at the Central Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística, CLIP,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: He actually admitted in some of the interviews that he
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: twisted and that he put many informations out of context
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: just to make the case that he wanted to make
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: the case. He admitted that that was sort of his strategy.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: It's a strategy that has been deployed across the region.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Last month, Brazil's Folha de São Paulo newspaper interviewed Nadia
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Beller about Fernando Cerimedo's work fixing elections around Latin America. Remember,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Beller is Cerimedo's ex-girlfriend who he allegedly tried to kill.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: This video was published eight days after the attempt on
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: her life. She's laying in bed and looking up at
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: a cell phone through which she's doing the interview. She
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: spoke about the cases that she remembers where Cerimedo used
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: bots to sway public opinion online ahead of the election.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I knew that in Honduras, she says. I knew that
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: in Chile, in the constitutional assembly vote. I knew that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: in Brazil, in Bolivia, obviously in Argentina, in Colombia, they
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: were going to do it, but I think they didn't
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: get to do it. I don't know why. I think
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: maybe it was because of economic agreements that weren't closed,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: or unless they had told me later that they had
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: done it. But there were some negotiations with Spain as well,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: she says. I don't know if you caught that, but
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: she just said that he was even supporting Jair Bolsonaro's
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: digital campaign in Brazil in 2022. Maria Marta Bruno.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Fernando Serimedo, it's a very... key example of like a
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: core figure that get all those nodes together, all those
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: wires together across Latin America and help to boost this
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: very successful digital communication ecosystem that has been helping the
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: right and the far right in the past eight or
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: so years.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: The Brazilian outlet Revista Fórum has reported that during an
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: investigation into Sérgio Meadows' properties, investigators discovered a mini bot
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: farm worth more than $ 40, 000 with a digital infrastructure to
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: coordinate campaigns over social media. Jake Johnston.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: You know, there have been a lot of allegations around.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's even bragged around his control of hundreds
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: of thousands of bots and things like this, right? And
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, we do have to take a
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: second to think like, OK, why? Putting aside any legality
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: or anything like this or, you know, whether this is
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: electoral interference or electoral fraud or anything like just put
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: it aside. I mean, could this have had an effect
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: on these elections?
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, you start to look at that,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: you say, well, these elections where there's less than one
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: percent difference between a winner and a loser. Yeah, these
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: sorts of interventions may have had a really profound effect
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: in shaping this narrative that we have today of this
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: rightward shift in Latin America. And how much of that
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: narrative is really the product of, you know, a sort
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: of digital army of folks all associated in one way
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: or another with Saramedo and with connections right back to
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration. You know, when people like me, I
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: like them.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: It's very simple.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: It's a very simple formula, and I like them.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: He said really nice things about me and the job
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: we've done in the United States. Very, very powerful.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing, and Jake mentioned this earlier. This Cerimedo
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: scandal has opened a window into the underhanded or dirty
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: maneuvers one man has taken... in part on behalf of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration to win elections for the far right
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: in Brazil. But we don't really know the full extent
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of what was done behind the scenes to sway the vote.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: You know, it is important to note, like, we really
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: don't know much of what these people were doing, right?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is, I think, hopefully what we can
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: learn through these investigations that are happening in Bolivia. through
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: what I think should be far greater attention from the U.S.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: media about the role of Brad Parscale and Trump-connected officials
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: with him and what they're actually doing. What is the game?
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: How have they helped these campaigns or interacted with these campaigns?
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: We do have a glimpse into actions that Sidi Medo
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: took to allegedly help the right return to power in
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Honduras last year. And it is extremely concerning. Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: It's just after the country's election on November 30th, 2025.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: The race was so close the winner won't be announced
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: for weeks. The conservative candidate Nasri Asfura has faced off
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: against leftist Rixi Munkadha and centrist Salvador Nasralla. The leftist
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Libre Party has run the country for the previous four years.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Before then, the U.S.-backed right-wing National Party held on to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the presidency through violence, repression, and fraudulent elections. They took
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: power after the 2009 coup. The president who ruled the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: country for much of that time with an iron fist
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: was named Juan Orlando Hernandez. At that point last year,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: he was in a West Virginia prison serving a 45-year
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: sentence for drug trafficking. We looked at a bunch of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: this in episode 12 about Hondurasgate. If you missed that,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: you can go back and listen. But here's the thing.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: There's a new audio clip about Honduras that was only
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: released last month. It's a one-minute, 30-second voice message from
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: political consultant Fernando Cerimedo to a member of the electoral
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: campaign of Nasri Asfura. He's the right-wing candidate, Trump ally,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and the man who would be declared president in late
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: December after a protracted recount. I just have to tell you,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: this voice message gives me the chills.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: In it, Seri Medo says not to worry, that they've
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: rigged the elections.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Stuffed ballot boxes where necessary, and removed votes elsewhere, all
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with the support of members of the armed forces who
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: are stationed at polling stations. Cerimedo is confident about their victory. Yes,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: from all of this, the only thing we can learn
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: is that the area where the votes are coming in
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: right now is where Tito wins, says Cerimedo. Tito is
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the nickname of Nasri Asfura, the National Party candidate who
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: is now president. In the second place, the locations where
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: more National Party votes are going to come in, if
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: there were votes from somebody else, those were taken out.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Those are being fixed, he says. We already have the numbers.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: According to what I'm seeing, we already have people aligned
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: in the armed forces. It seems that everything is going
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to be fine. well, he says. If we have the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: votes and we know where we lost the election, that's
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: where we place more votes. And they talk to everyone
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: at each polling station. That's all that matters. We don't
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: have to worry, he says.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: We don't have to worry.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: This audio was released publicly last month by Marlon Ochoa.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: He's a former member of the country's electoral court who
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: had to flee Honduras over death threats against him. He
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: said he handed over the audio evidence in December 2025
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: before the election results were finalized. But investigations didn't move
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: forward and election authorities rubber-stamped Asfura's win. Ochoa did not
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: reveal how he obtained the damning audio. I'm left with
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: so many questions. Did Seri Medo really rig the elections
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: for Nasri Asfura? If so, did the United States know?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Did Israel? Both of them are staunch allies of former
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: right-wing President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced to decades
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking and who Trump
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: pardoned just after last year's vote. Most importantly, if Cerimedo
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: rigged the elections in Honduras, did he also do it elsewhere?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: In Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru? Even if he
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: didn't stuff ballots everywhere, it's clear he was willing to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: use whatever means necessary to get his candidate elected, including
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: spreading disinformation or fake news during the campaigns and even
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: about the country's electoral system. And this is, quote, MAGA's
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: man in Latin America. Democracy itself is at risk. Seri
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Medo is now in custody. He's being investigated for attempted femicide.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Many of his former staunch allies are trying to distance themselves.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Jake Johnston.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And so this has been a huge scandal. And the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: investigation in Bolivia has expanded to move from femicide to
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: illicit enrichment to the protection of drug traffickers. And so
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: there's at least three now investigations taking place in Bolivia. And,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the most shocking things is just
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: the way in which all of the politicians who, you know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: just a few months ago were working quite closely. Now,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: totally wash their hands. I don't know who this guy is.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Rodrigo Paz, right, the new president in Bolivia, says, oh,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: you know, he was involved a little bit in the campaign,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: but I don't know who he is. There are photos
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: of him meeting with Marco Rubio and the Bolivian president
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: from just a couple months ago.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, so this is this is, you know, a
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: total sort of hand wash. You saw the same thing
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: in Argentina, where Saramedo was was very involved in the
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: campaign of Javier Millet. Now Millet said, oh, no, he
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: had nothing to do with us. Of course, it just
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: came out that he visited the Casa Rosada 14 times
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: last year. So you see this all over the hemisphere.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: He was obviously very involved in Honduras and very publicly
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: involved in Honduras and that electoral process again and another
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: razor thin electoral margin there. I mean, obviously, this fits
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: into a much broader conversation around social media disinformation and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: what its effect is on democracy, right, on political processes
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: more broadly. It's certainly a conversation, you know, that has
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: been quite prevalent in the United States and, you know,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: for a long time now that is extremely relevant for
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the upcoming election in Brazil.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Jake says it's not just about what Sanimedo has or
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: hasn't done in these other elections. It's about what underhanded
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: tactics may still be used in future elections, with or
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: without Cerimedo. And not just in Latin America, but in
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Spain and elsewhere where right-wing parties are gaining ground.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of people who are looking to
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: make money off the political changes that are happening in
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Latin America. And they can sell their access to the
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Trump administration, their access to this legislator, this lobbyist, this business, right?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: And they play up those connections to get a contract,
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: to get a consulting gig.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: And this is sort of the brave new world of
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: the Don Roe doctrine in Latin America, where it's not
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: just Sarah Mado. It's not just Brad Parscale and Javier
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Negre and Lander Echavarria. I mean, this is happening all
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: over the place.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: You can see these lobbying filings that are coming in
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: every day with different people hiring Trump connected folks. And
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: so they're all sort of competing for this space and
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: to sort of influence Petal and make money doing so
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: in the region. and take advantage of the sort of
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: political interventionism and rightward shift that we're seeing. And so
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: this is just one piece of it.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: In other words, this doesn't begin or end with Seri Medo.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: But as Jake Johnston said in the beginning, this is
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: a door that is opening to a world that has
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: largely been closed. And there is so much more we
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: need to understand and consider about how U.S. President Donald
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Trump is using his power to influence elections around the region.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: This is where.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: We're headed next time. In the lead-up to high-stakes elections
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: in Brazil in October, where Trump is vying to help
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the son of the former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro win
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the election. Trump has levied tariffs and revoked the visa
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of the Brazilian ambassador to the United States. And State
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Department officials are allegedly courting journalists in order to spread
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the U.S. narrative around the country's elections. That is next
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: time on Under the Shadow. Folks, first off, I have
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: big news. I've just launched a new website called Pan
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: American Dispatch. It's a project of The Real News. We
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: are translating daily articles from Portuguese and Spanish into English
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: for a U.S.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Audience.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Over the next two months, we're exclusively focused on the
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Brazilian election and Trump's attempts to influence it. Please check
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: it out. You can find us at PanAmericanDispatch.org. As always,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: you can find me at Patreon.com forward slash MFOX. There
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you can also support my work, become a monthly sustainer,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: or sign up to stay abreast of all the latest
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: You can find a ton of content there exclusively for
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: my supporters. Many, many thanks to Seepers Jake Johnston and
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Agencia Publica's Maria Marta Bruno. It was a pleasure to
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: speak with you. I'll add links to some of the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: reporting from their outlets in the show notes. As always,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for more information, news, and reporting on
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Trump's onslaught, both on communities within the United States and abroad,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: please check out The Real News and NACLA. Both of
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: them are publishing daily, indispensable reporting. The theme music is
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: by my band Monte Perdido. You can find us on
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Spotify or wherever you stream music. This closing music playing
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: right now is off our 2024 album Ofrenda. I hope
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you check it out. Under the Shadow is a co-production
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: of The Real News and NACLA. It's produced in partnership
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: with Global Exchange. This episode was written, researched, reported, and
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: produced by me, Michael Fox. The script was edited by
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Heather Geis. Thanks for listening.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: See you next time.