Brazil's first lady is under fire. Critics say her outspokenness oversteps her ceremonial role

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ’s government is grappling with unpopularity that has dented his credentials as the frontrunner for reelection next year. Critics and even some in his administration say his wife’s outspokenness hasn’t helped, accusing her of overstepping what has traditionally been a ceremonial role.

Rosângela da Silva, a 58-year-old sociologist also known as Janja, has also drawn criticism for insulting tech billionaire Elon Musk and advising the president on how to use the military during the Jan. 8, 2023 riots in the capital, Brasilia.

Still, the first lady says she will not change course. Meanwhile, Lula has staunchly defended her right to speak up and supporters says she is a strong, independent voice.

In early May, an air of triumph filled a dinner in Beijing, where Lula celebrated a diplomatic victory: Businessmen travelling with him said they had secured billions of dollars in investments as the veteran leader renewed his international prestige standing alongside his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

But then da Silva raised her hand.

Although no one was expected to speak, da Silva addressed Xi, saying that Chinese social media company TikTok posed a challenge for leftists, claiming its algorithm favors right-wingers. China's president reportedly answered.

The exchange was leaked to Brazilian media by the time dessert was served.

Still, she insists she will speak out whenever it serves the public interest.

A Datafolha poll released June 12 found that 36% of Brazilians think the first lady’s actions hurt the government, while 14% say they are helpful. It was the pollster's first measure of da Silva's approval. The same poll showed Lula with a 40% job disapproval rating, an 8 percentage point increase from October 2024.

Under guidelines published by the solicitor-general’s office, the president’s spouse primarily fulfills “a symbolically representative role on behalf of the president in a social, cultural, ceremonial, political or diplomatic nature."

For many of her critics, this does not grant her the authority to speak as a government representative.

Brazilian media have reported that government ministers, lawmakers and staunch leftist campaigners are privately raising concerns she could be a hindrance more than an asset. These worries have skyrocketed since the incident in China — even as Lula himself has praised his wife for speaking out.

“It looks like Brazil is governed by a couple,” said Beatriz Rey, a political science postdoctoral and research fellow at the University of Lisbon.

“When (the first lady) says there won’t be any protocols to silence her, she disrespects our democratic institutions for she has no elected office, no government position," Rey said. "It is not about being a woman or a feminist. It is undue interference.”

Last week, Brazil’s presidency in a statement to The Associated Press said da Silva “acts as a citizen, combining her public visibility with the experience she has built throughout her professional career in support of relevant social issues and matters of public interest.”

Lula’s first wife, Maria de Lourdes, died in 1971. His second, Marisa Letícia, died in 2017. Lula, 79, and Janja said they met in 2017 and started seeing each other frequently during the leftist leader's 580 days in jail in the city of Curitiba between 2018 and 2019. They married in 2022.

Many supporters of Lula's Workers' Party partly attribute the criticism against the first lady to misinformation and disinformation. In May, the party launched the “I am with Janja” social media campaign in her defense. But the week-long effort garnered less than 100,000 views and only a few hundred comments.

“Janja is an asset because she rejuvenates Lula, everyone in the government understands that, even her critics,” a Brazilian government staffer told the AP. “No one wants to alienate her. But many important people in Brasilia, friends and allies of Lula, do understand that by overstepping she brings some of her rejection to the president.”

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak to the media, often travels with the president and the first lady.

Adriana Negreiros, a journalist who profiled the first lady for a 2024 podcast titled “Janja,” said that allies of the president who criticize her do it with extreme caution.

”(Janja) dances, sings, speaks out, appears at official events and meetings with heads of state. She insists on being present and vocal,” Negreiros said. “There’s a lot of sexism and misogyny directed at her, no doubt. But not all criticism is sexist.”

Da Silva said she doesn't go to dinners “just to accompany" her husband.

“I have common sense. I consider myself an intelligent person. So I know very well what my limits are. I’m fully aware of that," she told a podcast of daily Folha de S. Paulo.

Da Silva did, however, express remorse during the same podcast for the expletive she used against Musk in 2024, once a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump.

She also faced criticism over her harsh words when a supporter of Lula's predecessor, former President Jair Bolsonaro, took his own life outside the Supreme Court building last November.

Many of Lula's adversaries say they want the first lady to remain in the spotlight.

“The more she speaks, the more she holds a microphone, the more she helps the right wing,” said Nikolas Ferreira, one of Brazil's most popular right-wing lawmakers.

Ferreira, a prominent social media figure, claims the role of regulating social media is a matter for Brazil's Congress — not for the first lady to debate with foreign leaders like Xi.

Da Silva is also expected to play as a keen hostess at the BRICS summit in Rio on July 6-7, a role her husband is almost certain to support.

“She will be wherever she wants," Lula told journalists in March, following criticism for sending the first lady as his representative to a nutrition summit in Paris that month.

“She will say what she wants and go wherever she wants."

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his wife Rosangela da Silva arrive to announce a housing program for the Moinho Favela, in Sao Paulo, Thursday, June, 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Ettore Chiereguini)

FILE - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and first lady Rosangela da Silva attend a ceremony at the Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the shared border with Paraguay, in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, March 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, File)

FILE - Brazalian first lady Rosangela da Silva, right, accompanied by France's first lady Brigitte Macron, left, speaks to students as they visit a high school Montaigne in Paris, June 5, 2025. (Bertrand Guay, AP File Photo)

FILE - First lady Rosangela da Silva receives the Order of Cultural Merit from her husband, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Minister of Culture Margareth Menezes, during an awards ceremony at the Gustavo Capanema Palace in Rio de Janeiro, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)

FILE - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and first lady Rosangela Silva arrive to a military promotion ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, April 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

FILE - Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks to supporters accompanied by girlfriend Rosangela da Silva after he was released from Federal Police headquarters where he was imprisoned on corruption charges, in Curitiba, Brazil, Nov. 8, 2019. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

FILE - First lady Rosangela da Silva waits for the start of a ministerial swearing-in ceremony at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.

With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?

“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”

Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.

Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.

Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”

Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.

“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.

Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.

Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.

The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.

The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”

Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.

“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”

Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.

Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.

“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”

Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”

Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.

“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.

Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”

“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.

AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.

In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)