A two-hour breakfast at Olivos
Patricia Bullrich, who heads the La Libertad Avanza bloc in Argentina's Senate, met President Javier Milei on Friday at Olivos for a working breakfast that, according to reporting by TN, ran for more than two hours. The encounter came after a string of public objections she had raised about the government's economic course. Both later described the conversation on their social media accounts as a candid review of the matters she had been pressing.[S1][S2]
In a post on X, Bullrich said the discussion with the president had been deep and sincere and covered everything she had been raising. Milei, writing on Instagram, called it a working breakfast at Olivos devoted to all the issues in depth, closing his message with the acronym MAGA. According to the Perfil account, that acronym refers to the slogan Make America Great Again associated with Donald Trump; the outlet noted that Milei usually paraphrases it in Spanish as making Argentina great again, but this time chose the version referring to the United States.[S1][S2]
The disputes that preceded the meeting
The disagreements covered several fronts. Bullrich had questioned the handling of the Land Law, the status of DNU 70/2023 and decisions tied to the 2027 Budget, including cuts affecting disability programs. On 30 September she described as hasty the move to advance the land chapter of the Private Property Law while a judicial ruling on the presidential decree was still pending, arguing that the government should have waited for the courts to speak on the land chapter of decree 70 before sending that bill, since otherwise it would act against its own measures.[S1][S2]
The following day, ahead of the IDEA colloquium in Mar del Plata, she returned to the subject and warned that pushing a law while a decree on the same matter remained in force could end up weakening the government's own legal instrument. In televised remarks she stressed that such things had to be thought through twice. Earlier, on 18 September, she had complained that disability-related changes in the 2027 Budget had not been discussed beforehand in the ruling coalition's political table, saying that if they had been sitting in a meeting the day before and still learned nothing, she felt treated as a fool, and demanding a political table where matters are debated.[S1][S2]
Another point of friction was her announcement on 7 October that she would vote against the appointment of prosecutor Susana Pernas, sent by the executive branch, because of Pernas's conduct in the Chocobar case. She had also clashed with the legislative strategy promoted by Federico Sturzenegger, the minister of Deregulation and State Transformation. Further back, in May, she had publicly called for then cabinet chief Manuel Adorni to file his sworn declaration immediately, warning that a delay could create political difficulties for the government.[S1][S2]
No confirmed agreements, and a week of contacts
After the Olivos meeting, no concrete definitions emerged regarding the senator's objections, and it was not specified whether any commitments were made to change the decisions she had criticized. For now, the posts by both figures were limited to confirming the encounter and describing it as a conversation about various topics. Before Friday, Bullrich had taken part in other government meetings during the week: on Monday, Milei gathered his cabinet at the Casa Rosada and the LLA leader in the Senate was present.[S1][S2]
The day after that cabinet meeting, the presidential spokesperson said Bullrich supports Javier Milei's candidacy for 2027. The two accounts differ on the spokesperson's name: one source identifies him as the presidential spokesperson without naming him, while Perfil names Adrián Ravier and dates the statement to Tuesday 6 October.[S1][S2]
