Lucrezia Ciotti The relationship between Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump, marked by strategic alliances but also by recent tensions, has returned to the center of political debate after a public clash involving the two leaders and sparking institutional and media reactions. The story was told in an emblematic way on the front pages of Open admission: on Wednesday the newspaper had celebrated the alleged rapprochement between the two leaders with the headline «Giorgia-Donald, love again", while today, after the new clash that occurred yesterday, he changed his tone with an opening dedicated to the harsh words of Alessandro Sallusti against the American president, summarized in the title «Trump is an idiot».
The rapprochement between Meloni and Trump and the new diplomatic clash
The relationship between Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump, after months of tension and distance, seemed to have found a new balance at the G7 summit in France. On Wednesday, the conservative newspaper Libero opened its front page with the headline, "Giorgia-Donald, love again", interpreting the meeting between the Italian Prime Minister and the President of the United States as a sign of political rapprochement.
Meloni, who had long sought to establish herself as Trump's main European point of reference, had, however, expressed critical views toward him for the first time in the previous months, especially after the American leader's attacks on the Pope.
According to the reconstruction proposed by Libero, the G7 meeting would have represented the result of the «reconciliation maneuvers» carried out by the Italian Prime Minister, described as a success on the international stage.
The reality of the meeting, however, would have been more complex: during the confrontation Trump would have in fact Meloni was challenged on her position on the war in the Middle East, accusing her of having moved away from her ideasThe apparent climate of détente quickly changed after the broadcast, on the La7 program L'aria che tira, of a telephone conversation between a journalist and Trump. During the conversation, the American president claimed that, during the G7, Meloni would have "felt sorry" for him, claiming that the Italian Prime Minister would almost begged to get a photograph together.
Meloni's response came through a very harsh video, in which she defined Trump's words as "totally invented", reiterating that neither she nor Italy are in the habit of asking for favors or humiliating themselves before other leaders. The affair also had institutional consequences: President Sergio Mattarella expressed support for the Prime Minister, while Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani's trip to the United States was canceled.
Meloni-Trump clash: Libero's front page changes in just a few days
Lo clash provoked a particularly harsh reaction from Alessandro Salusti, which after the front page dedicated to the story published a comment entitled «Trump is an idiot». In his speech the journalist chose an extremely direct language, explaining that he did not find «another way of saying it» and using the term «idiots" For define the behavior of the US presidentSallusti particularly criticized Trump's decision to make a private incident public, arguing that the accusation leveled against Meloni is so absurd as to be unlikely to be credible.
According to Sallusti, the idea that the Italian Prime Minister had insisted on getting a selfie with Trump would be a baseless reconstruction: «Giorgia Meloni asking Trump for a selfie is the stuff of hard drunks.", he wrote, judging the episode incompatible with the institutional role of the Prime Minister. For the journalist, the American president would have made a strategic mistake transforming a political disagreement into a personal clash capable of involving not only two leaders, but also relations between Italy and the United States.
In his editorial Sallusti also argued that the issue does not concern a conflict between the two countries, but an evaluation of Trump's actions, defined incapable of managing a delicate international relationshipThe journalist recalled that also a part of the Italian opposition welcomed the attack positively to the Prime Minister, seeing in the American president's words a confirmation of his own criticisms of Meloni. At the end of his speech, Sallusti wrote in a provocative tone that «assholes always come in pairs», referring both to Trump and to those who, in his opinion, had cheered the clash.
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