Martina Jaureguy Vice President Victoria Villarruel lashed out against President Javier Milei’s political decisions, saying he should save in trips and in intelligence expenditures if he wants fiscal balance.
Her comments followed Milei’s, who without naming her, accused her of being a “traitor” for validating a Senate session in which a pension increase and other opposition bills were approved. Despite past clashes and cross-accusations, this is the first time they have shared such harsh comments in public towards each other.
“Assisting the disadvantaged should not be so terrible. A pensioner cannot wait, and a disabled person even less so,” Villarruel wrote in a comment on her Instagram profile, responding to a user who accused her of “breaking the [fiscal] balance” and distancing herself from Milei in ideological terms.
“He should save on trips and the SIDE, and that’s it,” she said. SIDE is Argentina’s State Intelligence Secretariat. The rise in SIDE funding has been subject of the opposition’s criticism for a while, especially because part of it is reserved for confidential purposes. The SIDE is expected to spend AR$80 billion (US$62.7 million at the official exchange rate) in 2025 after the government added two budget allocations to the budget of AR$48 billion (US$37.6 million) it started the year with.
On Thursday, the Senate approved bills related to benefits for retirees — including an increase to their monthly pension and a moratorium that allows more people to retire — as well as an emergency in disability that granted more funds for this sector. The bills became law, since they already had Lower House approval. Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (LLA) argued that the session was not valid on the grounds that it didn’t comply with the Senate’s rules for carrying out a session, and the president vowed to veto the bills and, if Congress rejected the veto, take it to court.
However, the session was validated by the Senate’s authorities, including Villarruel, who is head of the legislative body.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Villarruel got into an online fight on X: Bullrich accused Villarruel of being an “accomplice of destructive Kirchnerism” by validating the session. The vice president, in turn, accused the minister of having been part of “terrorist organizations” in the 70s and said that her role was to preside over the sessions, whether she “liked them or not.”
After the session, Milei took the tensions in his already broken relationship with Villarruel a step further. In an interview, he said that all that his government has accomplished has been despite having “15% of the Lower House, seven senators, and a traitor.”
Chief of Staff Guillermo Francos later tried to calm the waters by saying that Milei had not made any “concrete references” to Villarruel and that she is in a “very complex institutional position” due to her role in the Senate. He recognized, however, that the president and his VP have a fallout between them and that it is “a matter of personalities.”
The damage, however, was done. Villarruel responded to several comments Milei supporters left in her latest Instagram post, in which she shared pictures of her trip to Tucumán to celebrate Argentina’s Independence Day. Milei was also scheduled to fly there for an event he organized, to which 21 governors snubbed. But he canceled the trip at the last minute, blaming it on the fog.
Villarruel took the opportunity to question Milei’s cancellation, saying she flew to Tucumán via a commercial flight instead of a private one. “I don’t use the state’s planes, those are only used by Milei and his sister.”
A broken relationship
Milei and Villarruel have been at odds for the better part of their administration. The two first began their political relationship when they allied in 2021 to run for lawmakers in the first election disputed by LLA. As part of the Partido Democrático, Villarruel and Milei (along with his Partido Libertario) joined forces with other small right-wing parties and created La Libertad Avanza. The two shared an amicable two years as Lower House seat mates, a time when they were considered political outcasts due to their similar far-right ideologies.
Despite not being both part of the same party, Milei chose her as his running mate in 2023 — perhaps because of her more serious profile and influence in the military sector, in contrast with his eccentric personality — and the two rose to power in December of that year after winning the runoff against Peronist candidates Sergio Massa and Agustín Rossi.
As their premiership progressed, the relationship faltered. Villarruel began making critical comments against Milei and began showing signs of seeking more power within the government. The first occasion was in March 2024, after Milei ordered her to annul a salary increase that she had approved for senators as head of the Senate, and she defended the increase in an interview, calling Milei “a little piece of ham,” given that he was always between his sister Karina Milei and herself. Milei and the rest of his administration have turned their backs on her ever since.
The breakup with Villarruel went distinctly public last November, when Milei said Villarruel is “closer to the caste” and that she “does not intervene in decision-making in any way” in his government.
In mid-2024, Villarruel sparked a short-lived diplomatic conflict with France after players of Argentina’s men’s football team were shown in a video singing racist chants against the French national team and Villarruel defended them, accusing France of being a “colonialist” country. Milei publicly said her comments were “not appropriate.”
The public divorce
“A president who cannot even say hello to the person he rose to power with? Go tell him, I never lost my manners,” she wrote this week on Instagram, replying to a user who told her to back Milei. “When the president decides to speak and behave as an adult, I will be able to know what his policies are, given he doesn’t speak.”
She also defended the validity of the session, saying she only complied with her role as head of the Senate and played no role in the approval of the bills. She also made an ironic comment about why Milei chose her to be his VP: “I don’t know why he didn’t choose Karina Milei [his sister and presidency secretary] or ‘La Limones,’ whom you like so much,” she said, referring to LLA deputy Lilia Lemoine, a long-time Milei supporter and his former personal make-up artist.
“I operate with righteousness. If I was disloyal, I would be making a feast with all the things I’ve been seeing for a while.”
