The 'Brazilian Donald Trump,' Jair Bolsonaro, is visiting the White House. He was elected president despite saying he couldn't love a gay son and that a colleague was too 'ugly' to be raped

Jair Bolsonaro, an incendiary far-right politician criticized for at-times misogynistic, homophobic, and militaristic views, visited with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. 

Ahead of his visit with Trump, the controversial Brazilian leader praised the president's plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. 

"We do agree with President Trump’s decision or proposal on the wall," Bolsonaro told Fox News on Monday night. "The vast majority of potential immigrants do not have good intentions. They do not intend to do the best or do good to the US people."

Bolsonaro and Trump have repeatedly praised one another and their friendship appears to be growing. 

"I'm willing to open my heart up to him and do whatever is good, to the benefit of both the Brazilian and the American people," Bolsonaro said in the Fox News interview. 

'The Brazilian Donald Trump'

Bolsonaro, a member of the Social Liberal Party who's been dubbed the "Brazilian Donald Trump," won roughly 46% of the vote in the first round of Brazil's presidential election in September. He was only a few percentage points shy of winning the outright majority necessary to become the next president.

But the far-right politician ultimately defeated the Workers Party candidate, Fernando Haddad, winning 55.2% of the votes in October's run-off election and securing his position as the next leader of South America's largest economy. 

"We cannot continue flirting with socialism, communism, populism and leftist extremism ... We are going to change the destiny of Brazil," Bolsonaro said in his acceptance speech.

In a January speech in New Orleans, Louisiana, Trump alluded to the comparisons that have been made between him and Brazil's new leader. 

"They say he's the Donald Trump of South America. Do you believe that? And he's happy with that," Trump said at the time. "If he wasn't, I wouldn't like the country so much."

Who is Jair Bolsonaro?

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who's served as a congressman for over 20 years, has a long history of courting controversy and is a deeply divisive figure in Brazilian politics. 

He's frequently come under fire for controversial remarks about gay people, women, and minorities:

• In 2011, for example, Bolsonaro told Playboy magazine he would "be incapable of loving a homosexual son."
• "I won’t be a hypocrite: I prefer a son to die in an accident than show up with a mustachioed guy. He’d be dead to me anyway," Bolsonaro said.
• He was also criticized in 2014 after suggesting a female colleague in congress was too ugly to be raped.
• "She doesn’t deserve to be raped, because she’s very ugly," Bolsonaro said at the time. "She’s not my type. I would never rape her. I’m not a rapist, but if I were, I wouldn’t rape her because she doesn’t deserve it."
• Bolsonaro also once described Afro-Brazilians as lazy and fat, and he has called refugees from Haiti, Africa, and the Middle East as the "scum of humanity."
• And back in the early 1990s, he suggested he was in favor of a dictatorship. 
• Years later, in 2015 he defended the brutal dictatorship that presided over Brazil from 1964 to 1985, which was responsible for numerous atrocities.
• More recently, Bolsonaro in September suggested his political opponents should be shot. The same week, Bolsonaro was stabbed along the campaign trail, an incident that saw his poll numbers rise.