The Numbers Come First
Javier Milei spent roughly 25 minutes on stage at the Partido Liberal national convention in São Paulo's Pacaembú stadium on Saturday, and he used every minute of it. Without once pronouncing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's full name, he called the Brazilian president 'thief,' 'the leftist,' 'El Presidiario,' and 'totalitarian.' When the microphones cut out mid-speech, Milei quipped: 'Who touched these microphones — the thief?' The crowd roared.
The Argentine president also turned his fire on Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the magistrate who conducted the process that sent former president Jair Bolsonaro to house arrest for attempted coup and conspiracy following his 2022 electoral defeat. Moraes had blocked Milei's request to visit Bolsonaro. From the stage, Milei called him 'the bald trash' and accused him of acting with 'vengeful character.'
The visit — Milei's third to Brazil since taking office — carried no meetings with any federal government official, deepening what both countries' press described as a bilateral relationship already at one of its lowest points.
Formal Blowback
The response from Brasília was swift and institutional. Edinho Silva, national president of Lula's Workers' Party (PT), issued a written statement calling Milei's conduct 'inadmissible' and said it was 'unacceptable that a foreign head of state come to our country and address its constituted powers in disrespectful terms.' Silva added that Milei 'would have made better use of his time and Argentine taxpayers' resources' by staying home to govern.
More unusual was the response from the STF itself. Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin signed a statement in the court's name calling Milei's reference to Moraes an 'irrespectful' attack on a magistrate of 'the highest court in the country,' delivered 'on Brazilian soil,' for a ruling issued 'in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the Federative Republic of Brazil.' Fachin reaffirmed the judiciary's 'full autonomy' and said the STF 'deplores manifestations incompatible with the civility that must characterize relations between States.'
Earlier in the day, São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas — himself a rising figure on Brazil's right — awarded Milei the Order of Ipiranga in the Grand Cross grade at the Palácio dos Bandeirantes before both men traveled to the convention.
Context: A Race Milei Has Chosen Sides In
Brazil's presidential election is scheduled for October 4. A Genial/Quaest poll places Lula at 55 percent for reelection against Flávio Bolsonaro at 25 percent. Milei traveled explicitly to back the younger Bolsonaro, telling the convention: 'We trust Flávio Bolsonaro to stop the socialist garbage.'
CEO Times reads it this way. Milei's intervention is a deliberate ideological signal, not a diplomatic accident. He has built his brand on confronting the Latin American left in its own house, and São Paulo was the largest stage yet. Whether that gambit pays off depends on whether Bolsonaro can close a 30-point gap by October — a steep climb the polls do not yet support. What is clear is that the Argentine president has made his bet visible: free-market, anti-socialist forces across the hemisphere are watching whether Brazil's electorate rewards or punishes the left's record. The PT's response — framing Milei's words as an attack on sovereignty rather than engaging the substance of his economic critique — suggests Lula's camp would rather fight on institutional terrain than on the performance of the Brazilian economy.
