"She’s much different than I thought," Trump said of Giorgia Meloni in a recent interview with Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper
Credit: Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty; Antonio Masiello/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- President Donald Trump swiped at Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for criticizing his recent attacks on Pope Leo XIV
- Meloni called Trump’s broadsides against the head of the Catholic Church “unacceptable”
- In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Trump said Meloni is “unacceptable,” and Iran “would blow up Italy in two minutes if they had the chance”
President Donald Trump hit back at Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni after the European leader criticized his recent social media broadsides against Pope Leo XIV.
Meloni, the head of the conservative Brothers of Italy party, said in a statement on Monday, April 13, that Trump’s fury over the pope’s opposition to the war in Iran was “unacceptable.”
“The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal that he calls for peace and condemns every form of war,” Meloni said.
Asked about Meloni’s statement in a phone interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Tuesday, April 14, Trump said, “It's her who's unacceptable because she doesn’t mind that Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow up Italy in two minutes if they had the chance.”
The president said he was “shocked” by Meloni’s lack of support for the U.S. and Israel’s military offensive in Iran, and that the Italian leader is “much different than I thought.”
“I thought she was brave, but I was wrong,” Trump said. In an interview with Corriere della Sera in March, Trump had called Meloni a “great leader and a friend of mine.”
Pope Leo, Trump told the outlet on Tuesday, “is not the guy that should be talking about war, because he has no idea what’s going on.”
Credit: Evan Vucci – Pool/Getty
Trump began feuding with the leader of the Catholic Church, the first to be born in the U.S., earlier this month, after the pontiff said Trump’s threat of mass civilian deaths in Iran was “truly unacceptable."
“There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more so a moral issue for the good of the whole, entire population,” the Pope told reporters outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on Tuesday, April 7, per PBS. “I would like to invite everyone to truly think in their hearts about the many innocent people, so many children, so many elderly, completely innocent, who would also become victims of this escalation.”
Pope Leo urged “all people of goodwill to search, always, for peace and not violence” and to reject war, “especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.”
Credit: Matteo Pernaselci – Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty
The pope’s comments came in response to Trump’s threat on social media earlier that day that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iranian leaders did not agree to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” the president said on Truth Social.
In a lengthy post on Sunday, April 12, Trump called Pope Leo “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
“I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t!” Trump wrote, adding, “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.”
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“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise,” Trump added. “He 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. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, April 13, as he began an 11-day trip to Africa, Pope Leo said he has “no fear of the Trump administration, nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel.”
“I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among states to find just solutions to problems,” he said. “Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there's a better way.”
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