President Milei or President Bartlet? Report says UN speech was nicked from 'The West Wing'

President Javier Milei gave his first speech to the UN General Assembly last week – and according to a local journalist, it was in part plagiarised from one of the most famous political TV shows ever to have been made.

Milei’s speech in New York bore curious similarities to dialogue from fictional series The West Wing, which aired from 1999-2006, reported La Nación on Thursday.

“Plagiarism, homage or a gesture of diplomatic audacity?” the newspaper asked, publishing a video in which Milei's phrases are interspersed with other almost identical ones delivered by fictional US president Josiah Bartlet, played by actor Martin Sheen.

“We believe that all peoples should live free from tyranny and oppression, whether it takes the form of political oppression, economic slavery or religious fanaticism,” Milei said in his speech at the UN.

The fictional president Bartlet, meanwhile, tells his advisers in an episode of the fourth season: “We are for freedom from tyranny, everywhere, whether in the guise of political oppression, Toby, or economic slavery, Josh, or religious fanaticism, C.J.” – talking to some of the other characters in the scene.

The text, almost word-for-word, is just one section. Other similarities can also be noted. 

The first to point it out the reference was La Nación columnist Carlos Pagni, who highlighted the “extraordinary resemblance” between the two speeches and blamed Santiago Caputo, one of the president's closest advisors, who is in charge of communication.

A month ago, another journalist from the same media, Hugo Alconada Mon, wrote that Caputo was a fan of the series and its scriptwriter, Aaron Sorkin, to the point of watching it in its entirety “between seven and nine times.”

This is not the first time that Milei has been associated with possible plagiarism: in 2022, Noticias magazine reported that his book Pandenomics included several fragments taken from other authors without crediting them.

– TIMES/AFP