Donald Trump’s ire and Russian criticism are helping Giorgia Meloni at home

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

(CNN) — Dual insults — one from the US president and another from a Russian commentator — flung at Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni appear to be uniting at least some of her critics behind her.

Last week, US President Donald Trump – who has historically had a close relationship with Italy’s conservative leader – decried Meloni as “unacceptable” after she stood up to him over his criticism of Pope Leo XIV.

“She is the one who is unacceptable because she doesn’t care if Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow up Italy in two minutes if it had the chance,” he told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera. “I’m shocked by her. I ⁠thought she had courage. I was wrong.”

The dispute spilled over beyond the US-Italy relationship this week, when Russian television personality Vladimir Solovyov called her a “certifiable idiot” and “disgrace to the human race” over her “betrayal” of Trump and support of Ukraine.

Italy summoned the Russian ambassador to formally complain and Meloni posted a cryptic response on X.

“By nature, a diligent regime propagandist cannot impart lessons in either coherence or freedom. But these caricatures certainly won’t change our ways,” she wrote. “We, unlike others, have no strings attached, no masters, and we take no orders. Our compass remains one: Italy’s interests. And we will continue to follow it with pride, much to the chagrin of propagandists everywhere.”

Rather than bruising the Italian leader, the barbs have appear to have won her support at home, even uniting those who vehemently oppose and criticize her.

“Her opposition has always said she was subservient to Trump. Now it has been harder for her opponents to attack her,” Giovanni Orsina, director of the department of Political Science at Luiss University in Rome, told CNN. “More or less the same goes with the attack by the Russian. It was really very harsh and somehow this has obliged the opposition and even the pPresident of the Republic to defend her.”

President Sergio Mattarella, a left-wing politician, has often disagreed with Meloni’s government’s policies, especially those dealing with reproductive rights and immigration.

The spats also appear to be helping her approval rating here in Italy, where she recently suffered a defeat in a national referendum over judicial reform. After losing more than 10 points in weekly polls following the referendum , her popularity has crawled back up to pre-referendum levels, according to SWG-La7 political polls.

“I think this is an advantage – bottom line,” Orsina told CNN. “Not unqualified advantage but certainly more positive than negative for her. For the Italian public opinion, that kind of attack on the pope was a bit too much – and Meloni was able to answer Trump on grounds that were inarguably in her favor, or at least in a way Italians perceived her to be right.”

That is no small feat. Meloni used to be criticized by her opposers for being Trump’s best friend in Europe. In January 2025, the so-called “Trump whisperer” flew to Mar a Lago before his inauguration, where he hailed her as a “fantastic woman,” thanks in part to her close relationship with Elon Musk.

And it’s hard to forget Trump gushing over her at the Gaza summit in Sharm el-Sheikh last year.

“In the United States, it would be the end of your political career. But I’ll take the risk. Do you mind if I say you’re beautiful? Because you truly are beautiful,” he said.

That coziness had increasingly become a liability for Meloni, especially after the threats of tariffs on European-made goods last summer, and the more recent US, and Israel war in Iran. Where she once revelled in her coveted seat in Trump’s inner circle, she had more recently avoided comment, beyond joining Europe in “expressing concern” over the war. She had not gone so far as condemnation.

She had been cautious, but in the days before Trump lambasted her, she quietly announced Italy was cutting formal defense ties with Israel. “In ​light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with ​Israel,” Meloni told reporters in Verona in early April.  “When there are things we don’t agree ⁠with, we act accordingly.”

Even Meloni’s fiercest political opponent, Elly Shlein, head of the opposition Democratic Party, made a rare conciliatory comment about her.

“I want to reiterate that Italy is a free and sovereign country, and our Constitution is clear: Italy repudiates war, ” Schlein, who is an Italian-American dual national, said during her speech to parliament last week.

“No foreign head of state can allow himself to attack, threaten, or disrespect our country and our government. We are adversaries in this chamber, but we are all Italian citizens and representatives of Italians, and we will not accept attacks or threats against the government and our country,” she said. Shlein also came to Meloni’s defense after the Russian commentator’s insults.

The public discourse comes at a time when Meloni was facing scrutiny over her public support for the nationalist former leader of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, during his reelection campaign. Meloni, like Trump, built her career on her nationalism, including anti-immigration and “Italy first” policies.

After Orbán’s defeat and Trump’s own waning popularity over the Iran war and its devastating effect on the global economy, that nationalistic approach is increasingly seen by Italians as reckless.

“Here is there is a growing feeling that these forms of nationalism may not be really the correct answer and certainly Orbán’s defeat has contributed to the idea,” Orsina told CNN. “That she is proposing the same nationalist answer, like Orbán and Trump, is maybe not the right approach.”

Voters will have the final say on whether Meloni’s approach is working. She faces elections in 2027. If her government stays intact, she will have been the longest- serving prime minister after Silvio Berlusconi and Benito Mussolini.

The-CNN-Wire
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