Milei gives unhinged speech to kick off legislative year in Congress

President Javier Milei’s third start-of-the-year speech in Congress was filled with aggressive insults, screaming and trading of accusations between him and the opposition. While he made some reform announcements, he gave very few details. There was also no mention of the release of Argentine gendarme Nahuel Gallo from Venezuela, which occurred on the same day, thanks to the mediation of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), which Milei opposes. The Libertarian leader gave the traditional March 1 presidential speech to kick off the ordinary sessions period during a legislative assembly session — meaning both deputies and senators were present — on Sunday night. It is common for lawmakers from the ruling party or the opposition to holler and make noise during the speech — either to support or boo the president. However, what was unusual is that this time it was the president who behaved this way while he was speaking. Milei engaged in an exchange of insults with some opposition members and drifted away from the text he was reading on several occasions, resulting in a highly aggressive tone for almost the entire time he was speaking. “I’ll tell you something, kukas. I love taming you. I love making you cry. And most people love seeing you cry,” he told Peronist lawmakers during the speech, using a derogative term used for supporters of former presidents Néstor and Cristina Kirchner which resembles the Spanish word for cockroach (cucaracha). The expression to “tame” is often used by Libertarian and Milei supporters in social media to attack the opposition. During his speech, Milei accused the Peronists of being thieves, corrupt and cavemen. He also said they were “murderers,” referring to the unresolved death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman in 2015. At the time, Nisman was investigating the 1994 AMIA bombing, and was about to denounce irregularities in an understanding memorandum signed between Iran and then president Cristina Kirchner. His death is being investigated as a murder, although the circumnstances and perpetrators remain unknown. He also criticized, without mentioning them, high-profile businessmen Paolo Rocca — CEO of steel production company Techint, who has questioned Milei for the opening of imports — and Javier Madanes Quintanilla — owner of steel company Aluar and tire factory Fate, which recently announced its closure. Using mocking nicknames, Milei accused them of setting their prices too high and, in Madanes Quintanilla’s case, using the layoff of 920 Fate employees as “extortion.” “Does anyone really want to continue with an impoverishing model where only corrupt politicians and businesspeople who are friends of the powerful win, at the expense of the well-meaning Argentines?” Milei said. Successes and announcements Milei used the speech to celebrate his administration’s successes throughout the past year, such as a “deficit-free” 2026 budget and lowering taxes. He made special mention of recently approved bills that were key for the government: a fiscal innocence law — which allows for no-questions-asked money movements —, the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14, a labor reform, and the approval of the Mercosur-European Union trade deal. The president made several reform announcements, although he did not give many details about what they will entail. He said each ministry has prepared a package of “structural reforms,” which together add up to 90, and that he plans to file one of those packages per month in Congress this year. Among these announcements are reforms to the criminal code, the school and judicial systems, taxes, and electoral laws — which could mean eliminating the primaries — as well as changing regulations on how political parties are funded.  He also mentioned bills aimed at protecting private property and eliminating business regulations, which will “give free rein to investment in industries that are dead so they can produce, innovate and create jobs.” A segment of Milei’s speech also seemed to suggest he wants to carry out a reform of the National Constitution. The president said he will “examine the juridical institutional organization” of the country “and build a new architecture” that will determine the Argentine state “for the next 50 years, with occidental morals as a new state policy.” In addition, he mentioned what appear to be modifications to laws that regulate the use of natural resources, akin to the glaciers’ law reform that was recently passed by the senate. He said he aims to build a “robust legal framework” to allow the extraction and production of raw materials, with regulations but “far from absurd environmentalist preconceptions.” This will apply to “all resources,” he said, including critical minerals like copper and lithium, as well as fishing, agriculture, hydrocarbons, and regional products. A perhaps concerning point came when he suggested he wants Argentina to end its historic neutral stance against armed conflict, saying that a step had already been taken, seemingly referring to his support for Israel and Ukraine. He added he wants to “fortify the armed forces” in line with the needs of the worldwide geopolitical context.  “We have to build the century of the Americas. Make America Great Again, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego,” the president said, in reference to the southernmost province of Argentina, which also marks the end of the continent.