First scene. Karina Milei summons Santiago Caputo to her office from the Casa Rosada to join Freedom progresses. Caputo is the star advisor of the government, but until the last February 6 he was not part of the party, driven with iron hand by Javier Milei’s sister. In fact, the advisor had been flirting with the idea of making his own game in the libertarian intern and promoting candidates of his new space the forces of heaven for this year’s legislative. But the meeting with Karina and the affiliation photo – or, rather, of surrender – bury that plan: Caputo must submit to what the Milei brothers decide.
Second scene. The crisis of the Cryptomoneda $ Libra explodes and Milei gives an interview with one of his favorite journalists, Jonatan Viale. Amid the recording, Caputo interrupts and orders to stop the note because the president said something that could self -criminal him. But the scene, erased in the edition that was seen by TN on February 17, comes to light on the Internet. It is a scandal. Milei defends his advisor, but Karina no. The lieutenant of the sister, the spokesman Manuel Adorni, says in a press conference: “I would not have interrupted.” It is a attention call for Caputo.
Third Scene. It is on Saturday, March 1 and Milei gives its discourse to open ordinary sessions against Congress. The communication of this act is organized by the Karina team. By her decision, the cameras of the official TV only focus on their own and ningune the rest. For example, it is not seen the radical Facundo Manes when he discusses in voice with the president from his bank, with a copy of the Constitution in his hand. But Caputo is not seen either, who follows the event from the back room, at the bottom of the enclosure. Even so, the advisor manages to have his minute of prominence when he faces Manes after the act and prepars it with threatening words: “You are already going to know me”, she snaps the radical, while some indiscreet cell phones films the path. When those videos transcend, Karina shouts in the sky. “Caputo ruined all the good that the president said,” the sister’s media parrots continue to repeat.
What is the name of the work? Crisis at the top of power. As never before, the so -called “iron triangle” that make up Milei, Karina and Santiago Caputo exhibits signals of exhaustion. Two of its vertices are at war. And the president, exposed, fails to escape from crossfire.
The trigger. The crypto scandal was what ended up unleashing the storm between Karina and Caputo. In the hours that followed Milei’s famous tweet, promoting the $ Libra scam, when the damage caused by that decision of the president was already clear, from one of the accounts of the X network attributed to Caputo a desperate defense was launched: the advisor argued that Milei had been hacked, because otherwise the recklessness that had tweeted was not understood. The same message repeated the salary trolls that respond. However, that attempt at denials became a shot in the foot when Milei himself recognized the $ pound tweet as his own. There was no choice, because there was his photo album with all the protagonists of the plot: the American Hayden Davis, the Singapurense Julian Peh and the Argentine Mauricio Novelli.
The last is an old acquaintance of Karina Milei, and she also opened the doors of the Casa Rosada to the first, Davis, who in a revealing chat – who later tried to deny – said that he gave “$$ to the president” of the president and thus “controlled him.” Clearly, Santiago Caputo was not aware of all these minutiae when he tried to install the hacking of hacking.
In the hours after the scandal, Milei locked himself with the star advisor at the fifth of Olivos to draw a defensive strategy, which on the one hand ended with the failed interview with Jonatan Viale and on the other The Argentines, ”he said in one of them) and that he could be willing to collaborate with the FBI in the investigation of the scam, which also affected US citizens. If Davis used to join his nexus with Karina, now that everything had gone badly, he had to change his interlocutor. It is unknown if Caputo managed to find him on his trip, but the star advisor did not stop having fun that the president commissioned him to clean the footprints left by the sister.
One collaborator summarizes it thus on the record: “Karina hits Santiago, surely for a matter of jealousy. But well that when the potatoes burn, Javier has no other than resorting to him.”
Another issue that faces the sister with the advisor is that of the Supreme Court, especially the failed designation of Ariel Lijo as a judge. Lijo was from minute one Karina’s candidate. Ricardo Lorenzetti – Viola Viola, the literate advisor of Lla and attorney of the party – approached in full 2023 campaign. On the other hand, Manuel García Mansilla was the name he brought Caputo to the discussion. For those laps of fate, the advisor candidate entered and not that of Karina. Worse than that: barely Mansilla swore as a judge, the hidden rushes -for a fan of Carlos Rosenkrantz, his friend in court -a new majority of three was consolidated: Horacio Rosatti is added to them, and thus leave Lorenzetti in solitude. That new majority obtained the arrival of Lijo, who did not accept the license request as a federal judge.
But wasn’t it that Mansilla was the government candidate? In this case, why did he vote against what the Milei brothers wanted? Karina blames Caputo for useless. “He put a guy who betrayed us at five minutes,” they heard complaining.
The lists. The photo of the star advisor to freedom progresses was a wet ear. The president’s sister implied two things with that gesture. The first: that he would not forget that he just had just arrived in space – the presidential campaign was united to Milei already advanced – and that he came from another stick, the pro. The second: that she had to submit to the host of the party, she, and to put aside her personal adventure with the tweets of the forces of heaven, led by “El Gordo Dan”, who dreamed with some little ones in the official lists of this year’s elections. It is a claim that they can archive.
The first lista closure of the year, in Santa Fe, leaves no doubt about who is the great electoral shipowner of the government: they were all the candidates put by finger by Karina. Caputo did not give a place. At the end of March, the lists for the election of Buenos Aires legislators and everything indicates that the star advisor will leave the ñata against the glass again. The spokesman Adorni, who responds to Karina, will lead that list. A no less fact: in the management of official communication, Adorni has been having friction with the second, Belen Stettler, a caputo sword. The advisor and the sister also fight who controls the Mileista story. Suddenly, he decides on the millionaire official advertising of the government, channeled through YPF, which in 2024 distributed 97.1 billion pesos among allied media, contrary to the Mileist slogan of “Zero Guard.” It is the triple of what the oil company had spent in the last year of Alberto Fernández.
The chapter of the pen for the lists started on November 18, 2024, when Caputo presented to his space the forces of heaven in an act in San Miguel. There were heavyweights of the official space: “El Gordo Dan”, Nahuel Sotelo and Agustín Laje, to name a few. And they talked about starting to organize to be candidates the following year. The first sign that something was wrong was that there was no one from the karinist troop, despite the numerous invitations taken. The following week, the sister executed revenge: she presented to the “official” libertarian youth -which was highlighted in the flyer that was distributed -headed by Sharif Menem, Martín’s nephew.
The Menem are the main “karinos” in the libertarian administration. Martín presides over the Chamber of Deputies and his cousin Eduardo works with her in the General Secretariat of the Presidency. He is Sharif’s father and nicknamed “Lule”, or also “wisdom” for his alleged relationship with Milei’s sister. The Menem, like their boss, speak pests of Caputo.
What is coming. The last short circuits on the top of power show a disheveled and nervous cap as the one that threatened the deputy Manes. It is true that the exhibition of his violent side was always part of his style -to take phrases of the Russian mafia, show themselves with firearms, intimidate adversaries with their anonymous accounts in the networks -but now that character ate the person. In one of his many apocryphal accounts he warns that “everything that reads here is 100% authorship of Tyler Durden.” This is what the violent and imaginary alter of the protagonist of “The Fight Club”, played by Brad Pitt is called. But Caputo is not fiction.
An know of his summarizes his state of overexcitation: “Santiago is today as the hostess in a plane. If one sees that the hostess gets nervous, he already knows that something is wrong.”
In the background, there is a historical theme: all who approached Milei a lot ended up ejected, such as Icaro with the sun. This happened with Ramiro Marra, who introduced Caputo to space and has just been expelled by Karina, rival of both. It also happened to Nicolás Posse, the influencers the Presto or Emmanuel Danann, Carlos Maslatón, and the firms continue. The predecessor of Caputo in the first “iron triangle”, Carlos Kikuchi, ran that luck: the shipowner was seen as an extension of the Milei brothers, but ended up being thrown like a dog.
Can Caputo break that statistic? Or is it about to swell the history? The unofficial spokeswoman of Milei’s sister, deputy Lilia Lemoine, graphs the real place of the advisor in several interviews: “The power that Caputo supposedly has is magnified. And if a shit is sent, they will crack it. Javier and Karina are the only untouchables.” The deputy does not speak, and less of such sensitive issues, without the endorsement of her godmother.
Caputo today manages more than half government -communication, SIDE, former AFIP, the relationship with justice, political strategy and a long etcetera-, but is notified. If Milei has to choose, the priority will always be his sister.
By Franco Lindner
