Oscar Puente He was in confidence last Friday. He participated in the III School of Government of the PSOE of Castilla y León, held in Salamanca, and reflected on political communication these days. “On social networks,” he said, “you play hard and if not, you go unnoticed and are irrelevant.” It was where he spoke the words about Javier Milei that those same networks, also the media, were in charge of transferring to the other side of the Atlantic: “I have seen him in I don’t know what state and after ingesting what substances,” he said about the president of Argentina. This Tuesday, at a press conference after the Council of Ministers and after a harsh statement from the Casa Rosada, the request for the resignation of the PP or for Vox to call him an “energúmeno”, the Minister of Transport excused himself.
In Moncloa, a journalist asked Puente, directly, if he regretted it. And the person questioned responded: “I said what I said, in the context in which I said it, in the place in which I said it. I assure you that if I had known, if I had had the slightest notion, and this is perhaps my big mistake, that it was going to have the dissemination and impact that it has had, I would not have said what I said. Sometimes, you think he is speaking to an audience of 200 people.” For the minister, as the Spanish Foreign Ministry and in recent hours also the Argentine Government maintain, “the story is over.” “Surely current political events have enough incentives for us to all change our minds and talk about other things,” the socialist wished.
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But his statement on the matter did not end with that. You might think he was joking, but Puente added: “By the way, I made a half-hour speech and it was cut off just when I started praising Milei from the point of view of political communication. I don’t know, she probably would have liked to hear it.” In effect, the images that have emerged from Friday end in the already known way, but also in effect, immediately afterwards, the minister praises not only Milei but all politicians, whatever their spectrum, who in his opinion are “ authentic” in their way of addressing public opinion. This is what, he believes, explains that “there are very bad people who, being themselves, have reached the top.” He also pointed out donald trump.
Puente recalled that interview with a Milei “I don’t know in what state and after ingesting what substances” to admit that his first impression was to think that if the then candidate “had advisors, he didn’t listen to them much” and that there was his heel. of Achilles, expressing himself and showing himself in this way in his public appearances. But, on the contrary, the minister ended up seeing this as an asset for the leader of La Libertad Avanza. And then came the “praise”: “I thought I was digging his grave, that it was impossible for him to win the elections. Well no. And this should lead us to a conclusion, and it is not only valid for the right; the left is more timid, it does not play in that territory of authenticity. I believe that authenticity is a value that citizens often appreciate more than any other. There are people who say ‘I don’t agree with that man, but I applaud the fact that he is saying what he believes in, what he thinks.’”
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Puente considers that he has also been himself to date. He remembered what got “wet” in his day Pedro Sanchez at its worst moment, when he was removed as general secretary and undertook the reconquest of the position against the PSOE apparatus and against all odds. “There were many people,” he explained, “who did not agree with Pedro Sánchez and by deduction they should have agreed that they did not agree with me either, but there were those who told me ‘I am not with him, but I am with the committed people, who bet, take risks, it is exposed, which does not reserve. I think that is a value and hey, if you have it, the logical thing is that you try to display it.”
Puente’s advice to the attendees, some of them future politicians, was one and very specific: “Be yourself.” And he gave himself as an example: “At this point in life,” he concluded, “I’m not going to change. Life has taught me that being who I am, I am where I am. “It hasn’t been that bad for me.”
