Martina Jaureguy Libertarian deputy José Luis Espert was booed and repudiated by attendees at an event where he was speaking after he said he told Florencia Kirchner, daughter of ex-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, her mother was “a great b*tch.”
“How can you not be bitter if you are the daughter of a great b*tch,” Espert said he had once told Florencia Kirchner. The comment was made during an international political communication congress that was held at the Argentine Catholic University (UCA, by its Spanish initials), in which he was a speaker in a panel alongside other lawmakers.
Espert’s insult came a day after the Supreme Court confirmed Cristina Kirchner’s conviction to six years in prison and a lifelong ban to run for public office. Attendees immediately started yelling at him and rising from their seats to demand him to leave, calling him a “coward.”
“I didn’t know this was politicized,” Espert said, adding that he would not leave. The panel went on after Peronist Senator Sergio Uñac, who was also a speaker, interrupted Espert and the chants against him saying that they could tell anecdotes but only “with the utmost respect.”
“I don’t understand what I did wrong, it seems like some people were offended,” Espert said. He did not apologize after the event finished.
Uñac later wrote an X post saying he “absolutely repudiates” Espert’s “lack of respect, violence and misogyny towards Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.”
The UCA also issued a statement saying that while they had not organized the event, they strongly condemned Espert’s “aggravating words.” They also referenced a speech by Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva during a recent te deum mass with President Javier Milei present, in which he called to end hate speech and symbolic violence by political leaders.
“Fraternity is dying, tolerance is dying, respect is dying; and if those values die, the future dies a little, and we lose the hopes of building a united Argentina,” García Cuerva had said in the homily.
The other members of the panel, Maximiliano Abad from center-right party Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and right-wing PRO deputy Martín Yeza, did not make any mentions of the incident on social media.
Espert had already made a similar comment on an X post in 2014, in which he wrote that “being a literal daughter of a b*tch is hard,” after Florencia Kirchner said her “only sin was being a Kirchner.”
Espert has made the headlines for other offensive or violent comments several times. On Wednesday, he insulted public university students who are protesting against the Supreme Court’s decision against Kirchner, calling them “these f*cking kids.”
With Milei’s support, Espert is set to be La Libertad Avanza’s leading candidate for national deputy for the Buenos Aires province in the upcoming mid-term elections, which will be held in October.
