Trump finds new ways to make his relationship with Italy’s Meloni even worse - EUROPE SAYS
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was supposed to be the one leader in Western Europe with whom Donald Trump could get along. Indeed, for months, the American president singled out Meloni, one of the. . .
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was supposed to be the one leader in Western Europe with whom Donald Trump could get along. Indeed, for months, the American president singled out Meloni, one of the region’smost conservative figures, for praise,celebratingher as a “beautiful young woman” who took Europe “by storm. ”The Italian prime minister was the only European leader to attend his second inaugural, which came on the heels ofa Mar-a-Lago visit. Headlines that referred to Meloni as Europe’s “Trump whisperer” soon followed. In April, however, the relationship started to deteriorate. After the Republican picked a bizarre fight with Pope Leo XIV, Meloni defended the pontiff. The presidential whine was almost immediate:Trump complainedthat Meloni is “very different from what I thought,” adding, “I’m shocked by her. I thought she had courage. I was wrong. ” He added, “She is the one who is unacceptable. ”Two months later, the American president, already short on friends, made matters vastly worse. In fact,The New York Times reported, “It looks as if the Italian prime minister’s teetering relationship with President Trump may have just fallen off a cliff. ” From the article:After the president told an Italian journalist on Thursday that Ms. Meloni had “begged” him to take a photo together at the Group of 7 summit meeting in France this week, according to an English-language transcript shared by the TV reporter, Ms. Meloni called Mr. Trump’s statements “totally invented. ”“Italy and I never beg,” she proclaimed in a video posted on social media. Meloni’s frustration appeared palpable in the video, in which she talked about being “appalled” by Trump’s “fabricated” claims. “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this with his own allies,” the prime minister added. Meloni’s message to Trump was direct. Allies deserve respect. If Trump showed half as much toughness toward America’s adversaries as he does toward democratic partners, the West would be stronger. “I and Italy never beg” is the line that people will remember. —The Steady State (@thesteadystate. org)2026-06-19T21:00:31. 510ZTrue to form, the Republican does what he nearly always does: He doubled and tripled down on the dubious claims that generated the international incident in the first place. On Saturday morning, by way of his social media platform, Trumpnot only repeatedhis underlying claim, insisting that Meloni “asked, over and over, for a picture with me” during the G-7 summit, but he even concocted a narrative to support his story. To hear the American president tell it, Meloni is “doing poorly” politically because Italians wanted her to do more to support the U. S. war in Iran. This, according to his weird version of events, is why she tried to cozy up to Trump in France, in order to “get her ‘numbers up. ’”While I’m not privy to the details of the two leaders’ private interactions, Trump’s story is very difficult to believe — not just because he’speddled similar absurditiesbefore, but because he’snot at all popular in Italy, and the prime minister has no political incentive to be seen with him. “These constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless,”Meloni saidafter Trump’s weekend broadside. The Republican nevertheless kept going on Sunday afternoon,again whiningabout Italy steering clear of his failed war in Iran. RecommendedSteve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past. ”Latest PostVance touts ‘successful’ first round of U. S. -Iran talks after Trump threatened new attacks