{"id":530567,"date":"2026-04-14T16:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/530567\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T16:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:26:10","slug":"trump-turns-against-unacceptable-meloni-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/530567\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump turns against \u2018unacceptable\u2019 Meloni \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The prime minister\u2019s political allies are standing by her. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GuidoCrosetto\/status\/2044079688276918378\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">backed her boss on X<\/a>, writing that \u201cGiorgia Meloni is a leader who has never been afraid to speak her mind, especially when principles, respect and identity are at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With this recent spat, Trump has turned on his last \u2014 and maybe staunchest \u2014 ally in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. president was calling Meloni \u201ca marvelous woman\u201d and \u201ca great leader\u201d only a year ago, as the Italian leader was tipped by many to be the EU\u2019s unofficial Trump-whisperer. She was the only European leader at his inauguration in January 2025 and acted as \u201ca bridge\u201d between Europe and the U.S. during talks on tariffs, according to Vice President JD Vance.<\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s rift puts a very public dent in her relationship with the U.S. \u2014 but it could prove beneficial domestically.<\/p>\n<p>Following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/italy-giorgia-meloni-political-reset-after-referendum-defeat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a defeat in a high-stakes referendum<\/a> that her allies have blamed on her closeness to Trump, Meloni has increasingly distanced herself from the American leader, leading up to her \u2014 delayed \u2014 condemnation of Trump\u2019s attack on the pope on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>First, her government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/italy-blocks-us-use-of-sicily-air-base\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">refused permission for U.S. military aircraft to land at the Sigonella \u200bair base<\/a> in Sicily and then the prime minister used a speech to the Italian parliament to list all the instances in which her government disagreed with the White House. Tensions rose on Monday after Meloni spoke out in defense of Pope Leo XIV. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The prime minister\u2019s political allies are standing by her. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto backed her boss on X,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[141,1347,49,153004,479,632,50,27157,51,47,52,48,30298,34123,158,163220],"class_list":{"0":"post-530567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-giorgia-meloni","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-italian-politics","12":"tag-italy","13":"tag-middle-east","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-religion","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-transatlantic-relations","21":"tag-u-s-foreign-policy","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}