Meloni responds to Trump's insult saying Italians don't beg
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has shown a sharp reaction to US President Donald Trump's insulting remark, saying Italians do not beg.
"I never beg, nor does Italy," Meloni said on Friday responding to Trump's "fabricated" assertion that she begged him to have a photo with her during this week's G7 summit in France.
"Donald Trump's declarations are completely fabricated," Meloni said in an X post, adding, "Frankly, I am stunned."
In an interview with La7 television's Aria che Tira programme, Trump had said Meloni begged him to take a photo with the US president at the G7 summit.
"She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly," Trump insisted.
Earlier, Trump had accused Meloni, who insists on still being a close friend of the US president, of having changed after his attacks on Iran and Pope Leo XIV.
"Italy and I never beg," Meloni responded.
Meloni continued, "Some things deserve an immediate response.
"I don't know why the US president behaves this way towards his allies. It's not the first time it's happened, I can only say it's unfortunate he doesn't show the same determination towards the West's enemies."
Meloni said after the G7 summit her relations with Trump were unchanged, claiming the two Western leaders understood each other's points of view.
However, during a conversation at one of the meetings at the summit in which European Council President Antonio Costa and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz were also present, Trump revealed that Meloni had "abandoned" him.
Meloni, when asked by Costa whether she and Trump had made up, responded, "we've always been friends".
Trump retorted, "I was abandoned!"
"No, you were not!" Meloni laughingly insisted in response.
Meloni and other European leaders had rejected Trump's insistence to them to join in on their aggression targeted at the Islamic Republic during the US-Israeli terrorist war on Iran earlier this year.
“We are not at war and we do not want to go to war,” Meloni declared back then.
Trump had also targeted the Pope for his condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Meloni openly criticized Trump in this regard, saying the US President's insulting remarks directed at the Pope were “unacceptable.”
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