Has Trump whispering run its course? Ask the departing Keir Starmer who famously brought that letter of invitation from the king to the Oval Office or Hungary’s ousted leader Viktor Orban. And how about the very public breakup with the only European leader invited to Donald Trump’s second inauguration last year. Beyond the spat over whether Italy’s Georgia Meloni begged the US president for a selfie at last week’s G-Seven summit… there’s the growing divide between Rome and Washington over trade Ukraine, Greenland, Israel, Lebanon and the war in Iran.
On that score, some still stick to Trump whispering like the Nato Secretary-General who before a show-and-tell display of flattery in the Oval Office told Fox News that Italy had allowed ‘500 US planes’ to take off from bases as part of Operation Epic Fury. We’ll ask if the Italian prime minister lied about her refusal to actively take part in the campaign against Iran and more broadly, about Meloni’s tack towards the pro-EU mainstream, patching up sometimes testy relations with neighbor France and getting a red carpet welcome this Thursday from Emmanuel Macron at an overdue bilateral summit in the French Riviera town of Antibes. Why the shift? Is it the end of the whole of the European far-right's Maga-envy? Remember that 2027’s an election year in both France and Italy.
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Piera Rocco, Riham Mahir, Charles Wente.
