Hear
Far from lowering the tone of controversy which broke out again with Brazil after the president of that country, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silvademanded an apology as a condition for starting talks, Javier Milei doubled down on the bet this Friday. The Argentine president said that he does not intend to retract his remarks because the things he said about his counterpart – that he was a “communist and corrupt” – according to him are two truths. He also called the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) a “communist and corrupt” a “little leftie with an inflated ego” and blamed him for having acted in the electoral campaign in favor of the candidate of Unión por la Patria (UP), the then Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa.
The claim was unleashed when on Wednesday, in an interview with the website UOLLula said that he had not yet spoken to Milei because he considered that the Argentine president should apologize to him and to Brazil. “I did not speak with the president of Argentina because I think he has to apologize to Brazil and me. He said a lot of nonsense. I just want him to apologize. Argentina is a country that I like a lotit is a very important country for Brazil, Brazil is very important for Argentina; and it is not a president who is going to create a rift between Brazil and Argentina. The Argentine and Brazilian people are greater than the presidents. “If the president of Argentina governs Argentina, that’s fine, let him not try to govern the world,” the foreign leader emphasized.
In this context, the libertarian leader considered this to be a “discussion so small” that it seemed like it was for “pre-adolescents”. He also compared Lula to other world leaders with whom he has already had friction. “It is the same mechanism of [Gustavo] Petro, from [Pedro] Sanchez. Don’t you believe that Petro and Lula didn’t do similar things? In the case of Lula, getting into our electoral campaign“, he maintained in LN+in relation to the support he gave to Massa, when both were competing in the runoff.
And without attempting to recant, he indicated: “The things I said above are true. What are the problems, that I told you he was corrupt? Wasn’t he imprisoned for being corrupt? That I told you he was a communist? Isn’t he a communist? Since when do we have to apologize for telling the truth? Or are we so sick of political correctness that we can’t say anything to the left even when it’s true?
Lula was convicted of corruptionwithin the framework of Car Washwhich led him to be imprisoned 580 dayswhich is why he could not run in the 2018 presidential elections. However, in 2019, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) reversed the decision because it considered that due process was not followed and the PT leader was set free.
Meanwhile, Milei continued with references to last year’s election in Argentina and said that Massa had carried out a “negative campaign promoted from Brazil,” because advisors from that country had collaborated at the time with the former head of the Treasury’s race for the Casa Rosada. “Wasn’t that aggressive? Who was the counterpart?” Are they going to apologize to me for the lies they told? Do those who lied demand that you apologize because someone told them the truth? Come on”, the President complained and that was when he sentenced: “We must rise above these trivialities because the interests of the Argentines and Brazilians are more important than the inflated ego of some leftist.”.
Totally different was the reference made by the head of state about the Pope Franciscosince it was shown again regretful for having told him that he was the “representative of evil” on Earth.
“Even though we had a different vision and different interpretations of the sacred scriptures, The qualifiers I used did not deserve them, because I was wrong. I was telling him something for thinking differently. He doesn’t have to buy my argument from Samuel 8, from St. Luke. I think it has to do with his perspective as a Jesuit, but at the time I fell into the trap of believing it was a question of character because he is a Peronist. Was my mistakethat’s why I answered the way I answered. And when I began to unravel about issues related to the sacred scriptures… I don’t put it in a political light, it has to do with their reading. There are things that I agree with and things that I don’t. It’s his interpretation, who said that mine is the correct one? “, he said after the differences were settled and both had met in a private audience at the Vatican.
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