Trump slams Italian prime minister, one of his few remaining European allies : NPR

TO MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

President Trump is remaking Washington’s alliances – and his own – and is now attacking one of his few remaining allies in Europe. In a telephone interview with a major Italian daily, Trump criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for what he called a lack of courage. This coincides with Trump’s spat with Pope Leo, in which the president described the head of the Catholic Church as, quote, “weak on crime and terrible on foreign policy.” Meloni called the remarks unacceptable. Trump turned his back on Meloni and called her unacceptable in an interview with Viviana Mazza. She is a correspondent in the United States for the newspaper Corriere della Sera. And Viviana is online with us now from Italy.

President Trump spoke to you yesterday about the Italian prime minister, who was once a reliable Trump ally among Europe’s most right-wing leaders. What did the president tell you?

VIVIANA MAZZA: He said… he started asking me if the Italians like the fact that Giorgia Meloni isn’t helping the United States get oil. It was his first question. I didn’t even ask a question at the time, and he asked me what the Italians think. And he answered himself. He said, I can’t imagine that. And he said: I am shocked by her, by Giorgia Meloni, because I thought she had the courage, but I was wrong. I asked him several times if he had spoken to her, as we had no reports of conversations between them in the last month. And he said no. He said – he clearly showed that he was surprised and said that he was surprised that she didn’t act, you know, basically, by supporting the United States in the Strait of Hormuz with minesweepers or by any other means.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, based on your reporting, do you think this is just a small disagreement between the two, or could it be a sign of a larger divide?

MAZZA: Well, this is certainly the first time that President Trump has said something like that about Giorgia Meloni. He criticized other leaders, like Starmer, like Macron, but not Giorgia Meloni. He has criticized NATO before, and he did it again with me and with Europe, but he didn’t really target Giorgia Meloni. And in fact, a month ago, on March 7, when I called him on the phone – as I did yesterday – he told me that she was a great leader and a friend of his, and he also said that she was always trying to help. So it’s certainly a big change, a change that has effects, you know, in Italy as well. But that’s the result, I think, of what Giorgia Meloni did. She also – the words about the Pope, I think, were particularly – they bothered Trump, I think.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Do you think that, from the Italian point of view, Meloni had to defend the Pope? I mean, did she have to respond for political reasons?

MAZZA: Yeah, I think she did, and she didn’t immediately say that word, that’s unacceptable. She said it later, the same day Trump tweeted. And, you know, at first, because she wasn’t saying such sharp words, some people started criticizing her. I think she had to, you know, say that, show that support.

MARTÍNEZ: Viviana Mazza is the correspondent for the newspaper Corriere della Sera in the United States. Thank you very much for your time.

MAZZA: Thank you.

Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the terms of use and permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org for more information.

The accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. The text of the transcript may be edited to correct errors or match updates to the audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio recording.