A furious Donald Trump has fired back at Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as tensions between the two world leaders show fresh signs of worsening.
Speaking briefly to Italian broadcaster La 7, Trump claimed Meloni had ‘begged’ him to pose for a photograph with her during the G7 Summit. The outlet aired only a dubbed version of the exchange, with no original audio released.
Meloni pushed back in a video statement on Friday, saying she was ‘astonished’ by Trump’s comments and dismissing them as ‘completely made up’.
By Saturday morning, Trump was doubling down, insisting the Italian premier had asked him multiple times to take a picture together.
‘Italian Prime Minister Gigiorgia [sic] Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s misspelling of Meloni’s first name was intentional, a fresh nickname, or simply a typo.
Trump continued: ‘Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her “numbers up”. No thanks!!!’
The latest public clash comes after relations between the two right-wing leaders grew increasingly tense this year amid the war in Iran.
President Donald Trump said Saturday morning on Truth Social that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had asked him ‘over and over’ for a picture at the G7 summit
Meloni had said Friday that Trump’s statement was ‘completely made up’, adding that ‘neither I nor Italy ever beg’
In his Truth post, Trump said Meloni was ‘doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon’.
‘But so did NATO, for that matter!’, Trump added in parentheses.
The President further lashed out at Meloni, claiming that ‘she wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways’, despite the US’s financial contributions to their ‘”so-called” NATO Allies’.
In March, Italy denied permission for the US military to land aircraft at the Sigonella air base in Sicily before flying to the Middle East, Politico reported.
Later on Saturday morning, Trump also bashed the Democratic Party, as he polled his Truth Social followers on whether they preferred the disparaging ‘Dumocrat or Dumbocrat’.
‘In one case, you simply exchange the “e” for “u,” so simple and precise (Many people don’t know, or assume, that DUMB ends in “b”),’ Trump wrote.
‘In the other, you spell out DUMB, but it seems to lose some of the identity to Democrats when done this way.’
On Saturday morning, Trump also asked his Truth Social followers whether they preferred the term ‘Dumocrat’ or ‘Dumbocrat’
Trump and Meloni were seen in deep conversation at the the G7 in Évian-les-Bains, France, this week, suggesting that the two leaders had steadied their relationship.
However, that was thrown into question after Trump’s remarks about Meloni begging him for a picture and the Italian PM’s subsequent response.
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In a video statement released Friday on X, Meloni said she did not know why the President ‘behaves this way towards his allies’.
‘It’s not the first time it’s happened,’ Meloni said. ‘I can only say it’s unfortunate he doesn’t show the same determination towards the West’s enemies, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence.’
She added: ‘There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg.’
Meloni was once a vocal supporter of Trump and the only European leader to attend his inauguration last year.
But their relationship became strained in April when the President criticised Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social for being ‘WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy’.
‘I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,’ Trump wrote then.
Trump and Meloni seemed happy in each other’s company when they were pictured talking at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France
Trump and Meloni, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron, during the G7 summit this week
He added: ‘[Leo] wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.’
In response, Meloni said that Trump’s social media post was ‘unacceptable’, according to the BBC.
‘The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal for him to call for peace and to condemn every form of war,’ Meloni said.
Trump responded at the time by saying that he was ‘shocked’ at the Italian PM’s comments.
‘I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,’ the US President told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Members of the Italian government responded to Trump’s comments about Meloni with support for the PM.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on X that Trump’s ‘serious and offensive words’ insulted his entire country.
Trump hosted Meloni at the White House last April and had his photo taken with the Italian PM in the Oval Office
Meloni, the only European leader to attend Trump’s second inauguration last January, saw her relationship strained with the President over his remarks on Pope Leo and the Iran war
Tajani canceled a scheduled visit to the US this weekend in wake of the ongoing feud.
He was set to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday in Coral Gables, Florida, according to the Miami Herald.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also came to Meloni’s defense, posting a smiling photo alongside the Italian leader.
‘Whoever attacks @GiorgiaMeloni attacks all of us,’ Salvini wrote Friday on X.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment on Trump’s post.
