President Javier Milei has triggered outrage after saying during a television interview that he would like to “put the final nail in the coffin of Kirchnerism, with Cristina inside.” Members of the opposition condemned the remark as “unworthy of a president.”

During an hour-long interview with TN TV channel on Sunday, interviewer Franco Mercuriali asked the president whether he saw Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof as a possible opposition candidate, in the context of fierce Peronist infighting.

“It’s not my problem, it’s the opposition’s problem,” he said. “Now, there’s also an element of morbid curiosity, and the fact that I’d love to put the final nail in the coffin of Kirchnerism, with Cristina inside.”

The broadcast cuts straight to a studio interlude after Milei’s comment, so it is unknown what the president said immediately after the coffin statement.

“So now you want to kill me, too?” responded Cristina Kirchner, the former two-term president and vice president, in a long X post. “You’re nervous and aggressive because all the stupidities you said for years on TV, and that you still keep repeating, are just that: stupidities.”

She then accused him of failing to meet his campaign promises and plagiarizing both his books and his ideas.

“It would be good if, instead of insulting left, right and center and threatening me with death, you found a way for Argentines to eat four times a day in their homes, their kids to grow up healthy so they can study and progress, and for old people to have the medicines they need to live.” 

She added that Argentina had already been through an era when “it was thought that the death of the adversary was the solution,” in apparent reference to the dictatorship, before noting: “Even if they kill me and there’s not so much as ashes left, your government is a failure and you’re embarrassing as president.”

On September 1, 2021, Kirchner survived an assassination attempt, after Fernando Sabag Montiel pointed a gun at her head and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire, and he was arrested immediately. He is currently on trial with two alleged accomplices for attempted murder.

Milei’s comments were also rejected by Kirchner’s fellow Peronists, including Kicillof. “Extremely serious, damaging and unworthy of a president,” he posted on X. “How many times will we have to reject the hatred and violence of Milei’s words? These statements from a president against [Cristina Kirchner] are completely incompatible with democracy and I hope they are rejected across the political spectrum.”

Deputy Germán Martínez, head of the Unión por la Patria bloc in the Lower House, said: “Those who think that Milei’s phrases are only against CFK (victim of a homicide attempt) or against Peronists/Kirchnerists are mistaken. Stop inciting political violence. Democracy is in danger. We have to put a stop to this between all political sides.”

 Peronist Senator Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro described the remarks as “reprehensible and perverse.”

Milei also lashed out at the media in the interview, saying that he had been victim of “the biggest negative campaign in the history of humanity,” and that “the media and journalists were highly complicit with that, lying openly for money against a person, interfering with my family, my dogs, everything.” 

He continued by singling out a journalist from TN, the channel that was interviewing him, by name, talking over his interviewer’s protestations to discuss the reported identity of the TN journalist’s anonymous source.

Currency controls

In other segments of the interview, Milei reiterated his promise to lift currency controls, but once again declined to say when. He said that his economic policies would eliminate Argentina’s monetary surplus, enabling him to lift the cepo even without having dollars. 

“We’re going to open the cepo,” he said. “I’m a liberal libertarian, there’s nothing I hate more than something that restricts individual liberties. Now, I’m not willing to leave [the cepo] at any cost.” He added that the previous government’s policies made it impossible for him to lift the controls immediately after taking office.