Italy PM Meloni ‘stunned’ by Trump’s claims she begged him for a photo | Giorgia Meloni
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni says Donald Trump is “completely making it up” about her after she claimed the US president begged her to take a photo with him during the G7 summit.
The two former allies appeared to be getting their relationship back on track, holding several one-on-one meetings between them at the meeting in Évian, after falling apart in April over the US-Israeli war in Iran.
But Trump, referring to Meloni in a brief interview aired dubbed on Friday on Italy’s La7 channel, said: “He’s probably happy I talked to him. I didn’t have to talk to him. He begged me to take a picture with him. He wanted to take a picture with me so bad. I wouldn’t have, but I felt bad for him.”
The remarks sparked outrage in Italy and words of solidarity for Meloni emerged from across the political spectrum, with Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani saying he was canceling his trip to the US next week.
Meloni, who responded with the title “Italy and I never beg” in the video he shared on Instagram, said “some things deserve an immediate answer.”
“Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated,” he added. “Frankly, I am surprised. I do not know why the US President behaves this way towards his allies. This is not the first time, I can only say that it is unfortunate that the West does not show the same determination against its enemies.”
Trump and Meloni fell out in April over two reasons: Italy’s refusal to support the US-Israeli war in Iran and Trump’s subsequent extraordinary attack on Pope Leo in response to the pope’s condemnation of the war. By then, Meloni had long developed good relations with Trump, based mostly on shared nationalist rhetoric, and was the only European leader invited to his inauguration as US president.
Giuseppe Conte, former prime minister and leader of the opposition Five Star Movement party, said Italy “did not deserve to find itself so blatantly humiliated”.
Announcing that his trip to the USA, which he planned to take on date X, was cancelled, Tajani said: “President Trump’s serious and aggressive words towards Prime Minister Giorgia disturbed the whole of Italy.”
Giovanbattista Fazzolari, undersecretary of the Prime Ministry, said in a statement: “It is not clear whether it was intentional or incompetence [Trump] It is destroying historic relations between the United States and Europe. “By his inappropriate outbursts he has made no easy task of making the United States unpopular throughout the European continent and damaging not only Europe but, above all, the United States.”
