A popular chant can be heard at many recent left-wing protests in Brazil: “Vai cair, vai cair, vai cair, o Temer vai cair!” “He’s gonna fall,” it asserts, “Temer is gonna fall!” Months ago this chant had a whiff of wishful thinking to it, but last night’s bombshell revelations about the interim president could make it come true.

At 7 PM last night the journal Globo revealed that Temer had been caught on tape encouraging Joesley and Wesley Batista, two brothers who run the meat-processing company JBS to continue payments to his former ally, Eduardo Cunha, in order to buy his silence. Cunha, as the former president of the Chamber of Deputies, was one of the most devoted proponents of Workers’ Party (PT) leader Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, and has been sitting in prison on counts of corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion since October.

JBS, for its part, has been under legal pressure since March, when the federal police launched an investigation known as “Carne Fraca,” into the company’s practice of mixing rotten meat into meat sold in Brazil and abroad. The brothers handed over the tapes — recorded on March 7, 2017, six months into Temer’s mandate — as part of a plea bargain with the federal police.