On Wednesday night, Javier Milei called live LN+ to interrupt the pass between Luis Majul and Esteban Trebucq and question the report that both journalists were giving about the judicial scandal surrounding Manuel Adorni. The president came out to defend his Chief of Staff with the same style that characterized him before coming to power: shouting, with fiery adjectives and without nuances.
Milei maintained that he is “perfectly calm” that Adorni is an honest person and that what was built against him was a “media carnage” fueled by “badly done numbers with bad intentions.” He finished off with a “no way he’s going away” that ignited the debate on presidential methods. Majul, at that moment, opted for silence on screen.
The response the next day
The next day, the driver discharged himself in The Observer. The analysis he made was not about the substance of the Adorni scandal but about the forms: what is at stake when a president decides to speak as if he were still on a television panel.
Majul recognized that Milei “was a great panelist for Intratables” and that he was also “a great candidate for President of the Nation”, two conditions that at the time allowed him to get where he did. But he drew a clear line between those roles and the one he occupies today. “As President of the Nation, he cannot be the same as a panelist on Intratables, or any other program”he stated forcefully, clarifying that it was his personal opinion and that everyone could think what they wanted about it.
The journalist also added an argument about the institutional weight of each word. “It is not the same as me saying ‘no way’, or the president saying ‘no way'”he stated, pointing out that the force of a president’s speech is structurally different—and heavier—than that of any citizen or journalist. “The force of a president’s word is disproportionate to that of a citizen”hill.
