WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden welcomed the new leader of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to the White House Friday, with each man hoping for a boost from the other as they try to put their countries’ previous administrations behind them.
Lula, as the Brazilian president is known, and his wife arrived at the South Lawn portico, where they were greeted by Biden before heading into the White House. Reporters shouted questions about the shoot-down Friday of a high-altitude aerial device over Alaska and were ignored by the leaders.
Biden and Lula both defeated populists with authoritarian tendencies in their presidential elections, with the losing candidates — Donald Trump here and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil — refusing to recognize their rival’s victory.
