'An Inept, Stupid Person': Why the Italian Press Just Used Popular Slang to Brute-Force a War of Words With Trump

Donald Trump has been branded a 'coglione' Italian slang for 'idiot' by a right‑wing Italian newspaper after he claimed Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had 'begged' him for a photo at the G7 summit in France this week, prompting a diplomatic row that has already seen Italy's foreign minister cancel a visit to the United States.

Trump, speaking about the 2025 G7 gathering, told supporters that Meloni had repeatedly pleaded with him for a selfie. According to Libero Quotidiano's translation of his remarks, Trump said: 'She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn't have taken it, but I felt sorry for her.' The boast landed badly in Rome, where Meloni and senior ministers insist nothing of the sort happened and are treating the episode less as a gaffe and more as an insult to a NATO partner.

Meloni pushed back in a video posted on X on Friday, flatly rejecting the President's version of events. 'Donald Trump's statements are completely fabricated. I'm frankly shocked,' she said, adding that she did not understand 'why the president of the United States behaves this way towards his own allies, and it's not the first time it's happened.'

She went further, turning Trump's swagger into a question of loyalty to the West. 'I can only say that it's a shame he doesn't have the same determination with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States, with leaderships with which he instead appears much more accommodating,' Meloni said. 'But you must remember one thing: Italy and I never beg.'

Italian Newspaper Takes Aim at Donald Trump With Slang Headline

Into that widening rift stepped Libero Quotidiano, a daily that sits firmly on the Italian right and has often been sympathetic to Meloni. In an editorial on Saturday, the paper dispensed with diplomatic language and reached for the street.

'I hate to say it, but I can't find, and perhaps there isn't, another way to say it: Trump is an idiot,' it wrote, according to a translation. The piece asked why Trump would spread what it called such an 'absurdity' about Meloni supposedly asking for a selfie at the G7, before offering its own answer in a slab of vernacular.

'The answer can only be found in the definition of the word 'coglione,' which has entered popular Italian slang: an inept, stupid person who acts with little intelligence,' the editorial declared. It is rare to see a mainstream European paper describe a US president in those terms in print, rarer still from a title that broadly shares his ideological territory.

Footage from the summit shows Trump and Meloni seated together on a small couch and talking, though there is nothing in the clip that independently confirms either Trump's claim or Meloni's denial. With no neutral account of the exchange, and no official G7 transcript of informal moments, much of this row rests on competing narratives and political instinct rather than hard evidence. Nothing about what was actually said between the pair has been definitively confirmed, so all such characterisations should be treated with caution.

What is not in doubt is how quickly it escalated. On Saturday morning, far from rowing back, Trump doubled down on Truth Social, insisting: 'Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France.'

He tied the anecdote to a broader attack on her leadership and Italy's foreign policy, claiming she was 'doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity' because she had refused to line up behind Washington over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Trump alleged that she had 'turned down the United States of America... when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon' and complained that Rome would not 'even let us use Italy's landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience.' Those assertions reflect his own characterisation of Italy's stance; they have not been independently verified within the material provided.

He then accused Meloni of seeking to 'be friends again in order to get her numbers up,' signing off with a curt 'No thanks!!!.'

Former Ally Giorgia Meloni Breaks With Donald Trump

Meloni was once counted among Trump's most dependable European admirers. She attended his inauguration in January 2025 and he rewarded her loyalty with fulsome praise at a summit in Egypt, describing her as 'a very successful, very successful politician' and 'beautiful.' That public warmth has chilled markedly.

According to the account presented in the Italian press, the relationship soured after Italy refused to help the US in the Iran war and after Trump turned his fire on the Pope, referred to in the reporting as Pope Leo. Meloni sided firmly with the Vatican, stating: 'The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal for him to call for peace and to condemn every form of war.' It was a pointed reminder of where her red lines lie.

The sharpest institutional response so far has come not from Meloni herself but from her foreign minister, Antonio Tajani. In a statement on X, Tajani said Trump's language did not just belittle the prime minister, but the country she leads. 'The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend all of Italy,' he wrote. 'For this reason, I have decided to cancel my visit to the United States scheduled for the next 21 and 22 June.'

Diplomatic trips do not get pulled lightly. When they are, it is meant to be noticed. For a quarrel that began with an alleged selfie request and a burst of machismo on the stump, it has turned into something more consequential: a public test of how far even ideologically aligned leaders are prepared to indulge Trump when his appetite for personal drama collides with national pride.