You can doubt all you want. It's on the record. It was said in national television.

He literally said those words. I heard them. Whole nation heard them. I saved a video of it.

Most charitable interpretation possible is he's too senile and doesn't know what he's saying anymore. Not a good look either way.

He also closed the 1st presidential debate by saying that if he won, Brazil would end. Just another one of those moments.

When I did a quick search in brave it agreed with the statement: "Yes, during a televised debate on October 23, 2026, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that his government would "end the police" if reelected. The comment occurred while he was discussing the approval of the PEC da Segurança (Security Public Amendment) and the creation of a new Ministry of Public Security. "

I tried google and he did in fact say it: "During the TV Globo presidential debate on October 23, 2026, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated: "Aprovada a PEC da Segurança eu vou criar o Ministério e ai você vai ver o que é um governo acabar, sabe, com a polícia e deixar o território livre""

Although google says that he might have been being sarcastic, and gave some additional defenses. I googled "Did Lula say he was going to end police recently?" and got these responses.

Im surprised that you got such a different result in such a short time frame, especially the "completely false" thing, as it's not far off the direct quote. What did you google?

Brazilian leftists in general do have a history of radical opposition to the military police. Some radical left parties propose abolishing it outright. "The military police has got to end" is even a line in at least one leftist movie, uttered by a "fascist" police officer no less. It's definitely an idea in the memespace of the Brazilian left.

So in my opinion this "gaffe" is just him revealing his true colors in public. Like when someone gets drunk and starts saying what they're really thinking.

There were numerous fact checking services, none of them particularly trustworthy. The "official" fact checking came from Globo, which hosted the debate. They're known to be biased towards him. They literally helped him out during the debate when he started screwing up his time management.

I had Astra perform a thorough fact checking on both debates, and the fact checking of Globo and other major newspapers. It found a certain degree of favoritism towards Lula.

I don't doubt it. His fans will vote for him no matter what he says or what he does. He literally got a call from Epstein while in jail and nobody cares.

Anything could happen in the next few hours... Just saying that it doesn't look good for him.