The story of the 300 Spartans who fought to the death with the army of the god-king Xerxes was very famous even before the film of the same name. That 2006 film, which brought this epic to every corner of the West, has a famous ending: before being massacred by the Persians, Leonidas manages to make a small cut on Xerxes’ cheek. However, that seemingly minor wound is enough. The blood that flows from the face of the self-proclaimed god is enough to confirm that he is as mortal as the rest. Bridging enormous distances, although Javier Milei likes to inhabit esoteric worlds in which he believes he is the chosen one of a supreme being, Patricia Bullrich’s political and media raid has been having the same effect on the Government as that of the Spartan’s spear on the Eastern Empire: the senator stands out and challenges the presidential word, and these gestures, apparently not so important, are enough to demonstrate that the authority and power of the Milei brothers are not as omnipresent as many they thought. And also to say that, in addition to the libertarian one, there could be a plan B for 2027.
Disagreement. At what moment, Mario Vargas Llosa could say, did the link between Bullrich and the general secretary, who in practice holds the reins of the Government, “screw up”? It was, everyone involved knows, long before the crude scenes that occurred on Monday the 25th. On the anniversary of the May revolution, the internal storm that shakes the Government was exposed to everyone, when Karina Milei brought out one of the qualities that she has most trained in and that at this point could be said to be her personal hallmark of political leadership: public humiliation of those to whom she has already done the cross.
The general secretariat, the area that is formally in charge of the events, did not invite Bullrich to the walk from the Casa Rosada to the Cathedral. The appointment that came to him was directly to the headquarters of the Buenos Aires church, but the course did not end there: when he threatened to join the first rows of the temple, where the Government staff was, they prohibited him from entering. They told him that by “protocol” only members of the Cabinet could join. It was an excuse that almost made Bullrich, finally destined almost to the back of the Cathedral, laugh when she spotted Santiago Caputo, and his extravagant “Peaky Blinders” look, among the select group of supposed ministers. By “protocol” could the unpaid advisor be there and the head of the official bloc in Seando not?
In any case, the sister had one more rude act up her sleeve. After the Tedeum, and the harsh speech by Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva, Milei and his people went to the Cabildo to sing the national anthem. Here even the President added leaders like Jorge Macri, whom he did not greet until recently. However, once again the senator was excluded from the banquet, denied for the third time like Peter was to Jesus. And while he followed the national song from the cold of the Buenos Aires street, a shout came to him that well summarizes the crux of the matter: “Patricia President.”
It is in that comment from an anonymous fan where the heart of Karina Milei’s problems and cold anger lies: in a few months where the presidential figure seems to be going through a storm, pushed by the endless scandal of the Adorni case, the senator appears in almost all surveys with a better image than Milei himself. And both things seem to be related. The thing is that while the libertarian’s numbers are falling, Bullrich is the only one who publicly questions the Chief of Staff and his transparency.
This crossroads of misfortunes is the worst nightmare of the general secretary’s youngest child coming to life. Since La Libertad Avanza was born, Karina’s priority was to systematically take care of two issues: one was that no one within the space dared to compete with the figure of her brother – much less eclipse her – and another was to ensure, with the zeal of a hunting dog, that no one strayed even a single centimeter from the plot line that the Milei marked. In fact, this last one is perhaps the great novelty that the Bullrich case brings: removing Villarruel, the senator is the first member of the ruling party who dares to challenge the mileista siege by detaching herself in public from the official discourse. Until now – except for the case of the vice president, whom the Casa Rosada cannot constitutionally throw out – no one from La Libertad Avanza survived the ruse against the brothers.
Maze. Villarruel, in fact, must be quietly enjoying this fight. The thing is that both she and Bullrich remember what was the first meeting between the two when the latter assumed leadership of the bloc in the Senate, at the end of last year.
At that time the situation was radically different: although the newly elected legislator had not liked too much that Karina practically ordered her to leave the Ministry of Security to be a Buenos Aires candidate -perhaps the first sign of her sister’s distrust-, the relationship between the Government boss and her was going smoothly. So much so that, they swear close to the former minister, around the time of the holidays Karina assured her, in an intimate lunch between the two, that she wanted her now arch-enemy to be the candidate to take the City from the PRO in 2027.
That apparent harmony emboldened Bullrich, at that moment. Or that is, at least, what the vice president thought she had noticed in that first meeting, when the senator – also pushed by a landslide victory in the legislative elections – arrived at Villarruel’s office with what the hostess, pointed out by the rest of the ruling party, understood to be some extra air. “Patricia, don’t be confused: at any moment you, too, are going to end up on this side,” the other woman whom Karina detests would have prophesied.
Time seems to have proven him right. The thing is that since the beginning of the year at this point the only thing that the relationship between Bullrich and the general secretary did was worsen, a tension to which both contributed. An event that the senator had organized and to which at the last moment Rosada imposed a then-empowered Adorni as moderator, Bullrich’s attempt to monopolize the approval of the Labor Reform – even with a viral video on the networks included, to the rhythm of a Maddona song -, his proselytizing tour of the City, the public flirtations with Jorge Macri and the hug with his cousin at a dinner at the Libertad Foundation, the resignation of a close official from the Ministry of Security to its former leader, the request for Adorni to show his sworn statement and the disinvitation to the next Cabinet meeting, and the list of short circuits continues to the Tedeum.
All this anecdote is, in any case, just that. The backdrop is what is important: several people close to Bullrich dream of her as a presidential candidate, an eternal frustrated dream of the now senator that those who know her say she will never abandon. This is precisely the fear of Karina Milei, who sees in the movements of her new archenemy the sum of all her enemies. The general secretary is convinced that Bullrich is once again proving that old axiom that says that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and therefore approaching Santiago Caputo and the PRO. Around Bullrich they deny it forcefully, and they even say that the relationship with the advisor was always rather bad – “he thinks he’s a stupid asshole” – but none of that stops the sister’s paranoia. There is one piece of the puzzle that is unobjectionable: Bullrich’s campaign manager in 2023 was Derek Hampton, historical partner of the self-proclaimed “Wizard of the Kremlin.”
With the yellow space the story is different. Not only because that was the last space in which he was before the jump to La Libertad Avanza, but because now Bullrich maintains that an alliance must be sought with the PRO – and also with other allied governors, with whom Bullrich now claims to have so much dialogue that he is even convinced that the votes are not there to eliminate PASO – for next year. “If we go separately, they are going to put a candidate for the national election who has no chance of winning but has the capacity to cause harm,” they argue close to her. Bullrich would have personally conveyed that idea to Jorge Macri, in what may have been an attempt to reassure him: there are several who think that the senator is raising her price, spreading the version of her national candidacy, to end up negotiating the ticket for the Buenos Aires leadership. “He’s big enough to fix potholes,” they say near him. At this intersection of alliances is where a coincidence with the all-terrain advisor also appears again: since 2024, Caputo has been maintaining that we must go with alliances in the provinces. Karina, on the other hand, wants to put her own candidates, a logic that she successfully applied already in 2025. Like Villarruel, the rusty engineer of chaos is another one who silently enjoys this battle with his archenemy. Meanwhile, the secretary general would seem to be entering into shaky territory by accumulating so many enemies at the same time.
Pulsed. The big question is what the President thinks about this whole story. Around Bullrich they hide again and again behind the same idea: “Everything he says in public he has already said to Javier and Karina’s faces.” This thesis applies both to the statements against Adorni – “besides, Patricia only says what the entire Cabinet thinks” – and to the direction of 2027, including the slippery idea that “she will be there for whatever the team asks for.” For now, the relationship with Milei has not been cut off, although it has cooled down. The daily breakfasts at the Quinta de Olivos between the two seem to be a postcard from the past, a distance that in any case has been growing between the president and all his ministers. Bullrich is not the only one to show her differences with the libertarian: although with much more subtlety, Luis Caputo seemed to contradict the President when he assured that there was no more room for “adjustment”, a logic that clashes with the president’s thesis of continuing with “the chainsaw.” For now, Milei shelters them both in public, like when, after the rudeness at the Tedeum, she took Bullrich to the balcony of the Casa Rosada with a hug to greet the public together.
Some of those who dream of a Bullrich candidate are precisely those who are tired not so much of Milei’s economic program but of “the forms.” It is precisely the red circle, for whom the public and sustained aggression by the president against Paolo “Don Chatarrín” Rocca would seem to have been a watershed. The rebound that Bullrich’s possible presidential adventure has been experiencing is leveraged precisely on this idea: the dream of several businessmen to see in La Rosada a “thousandism of good manners.” “Even the ministers would be the same. The ideas are good but with Milei you can’t talk or work,” reasons a finance man.
There is, in any case, a political logic that splinters this new dream of the local establishment. It is similar to what happened to Mauricio Macri in 2019, when, given the fall of his figure, many in that red circle wanted to push María Eugenia Vidal as “Plan V” for that election. The founder of the PRO recounts this back-and-forth in his book “Primer Tiempo”, when he narrates a talk with former Spanish president Felipe González: “He told me that it was absurd to step aside. If I accepted my own defeat as a fact, it would be impossible to empower someone to have a chance of success.” Aside from the differences, the logic would seem to be the same: if Milei arrives chipped at next year’s elections, why would anyone in his government have a better chance than him? Or, put another way: if things go well for the libertarian, things go well for him, and if things go badly for him, things go badly for him and his entire space.
In any case, that’s what’s missing. Those who know Bullrich assure that he will continue to mark his differences, in public and in private. The senator is going to continue being the uncomfortable partner of the Milei brothers.
