3 key takeaways from Biden’s Summit of the Americas

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (CNN) - In an odd twist of scheduling, President Joe Biden was meeting here Thursday with a leader who's amplified conspiracy theories the very same hour that startling new details emerged about the conspiracy to deny him the presidency.

Biden had for months been averse to engaging Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, who US officials fear is parroting former President Donald Trump's lies about voter fraud to undermine Brazil's system ahead of his own reelection bid this fall.

But in order to lure him to Los Angeles for a summit of regional leaders that was plagued by boycotts, Biden agreed to a one-on-one meeting.

And so, on Thursday afternoon, Biden found himself in a conference room alongside a man who, two days earlier, had deemed his 2020 victory "suspicious."

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the House committee investigating attempts to overturn that election was putting the finishing touches on its blockbuster public hearing.

"I'm anxious to hear what's on your mind and talk about whatever you want to talk about," Biden told Bolsonaro somewhat obliquely before their meeting.

"I'd like to listen as well as raise a few issues that are of, I think, mutual interest to us."

Biden's meeting with Bolsonaro demonstrated the lengths he was willing to go to in order to offer a unified picture of the Western Hemisphere at a conference where disunity was often on display.

And its coincidental timing alongside the House hearing on the events of January 6, 2021 -- where the autocratic tendencies of the previous US President were exposed in sometimes-shocking fashion -- laid bare the difficulty in using America's example to promote democracy in an increasingly fractured region.

Biden was able to secure some important commitments this week, including an agreement on migration that came together at the last minute.

But questions over attendance and the region's disparate priorities were still on ample display.

And Biden's political struggles were never far from the surface.

Here are three takeaways from this week's Summit of the Americas.