Donald Trump has reignited his feud with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni by posting a bizarre “restraining order” swipe at her on Truth Social. The US president shared an edited image of himself standing over Meloni at last month’s G7 summit, captioned: “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”
How the row started
It was the latest twist in a dispute that began when Trump claimed Meloni had “begged” him for a photo at the summit. “She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her,” Trump said at the time.
Meloni hit back directly in a video posted online, calling the story “completely fabricated.” “Italy and I do not beg,” she said. Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani subsequently cancelled a planned trip to the United States in protest, describing Trump’s claim as “serious and offensive.”
Rather than let the matter drop, Trump doubled down, claiming Meloni had asked for a photo “over and over” and telling NBC News she was “a big fan” of his. “But I don’t want her as a fan,” he added, before somehow linking the row to NATO tensions and the Strait of Hormuz.
Meloni’s response was withering. “My popularity is none of your concern,” she said. “I suggest you focus on yours.”
Round two
For a while, the row appeared to have gone quiet. Then Trump posted the “restraining order needed” image, and critics on X responded exactly as might be expected.
Republicans against Trump reposted the image with the simple caption: “He’s fu*king NUTS.” Covie argued the continued attacks were themselves evidence of who had actually lost the exchange: “You know trump lost the feud with Meloni because he’s still going after she just addressed him once.” Hoodlum called the whole episode “desperate,” writing that the post implied the right-wing Italian leader was somehow obsessed with Trump.
ThePatrioticBlonde mocked the gendered dynamics of the attack directly: “Trump wants the courts to protect him from a girl,” followed by laughing emojis. New Lincoln Party framed it as symptomatic of a wider pattern: “He’s determined to destroy all our most valuable alliances. Putin is pleased.” James Tate summed the whole thing up in two words: “Alpha fail.”
Perhaps the sharpest response came from Auntie Ifa Charitie Hartsig: “This is how men who abuse women act. They pretend like they’re the victim.”
Why the row keeps getting worse for Trump, not Meloni
Whatever Trump intended the meme to achieve, it has mainly succeeded in keeping alive a dispute that Meloni appeared to have already won with a single line. “Italy and I do not beg” is not exactly the kind of quote a politician wants echoing around after attempting to portray a fellow world leader as desperate for their attention.
What makes the episode particularly striking is that Meloni is not an ideological adversary Trump can easily fold into his usual pattern of grievance politics. She is one of Europe’s most prominent right-wing leaders and has generally been treated by international conservatives as a natural ally. Picking a sustained public fight with her, over a photograph, is a genuinely unusual choice of target.
Yet Trump’s response to being publicly corrected was not to move on but, in the words of several commentators online, to “post through it.” That, more than the original claim itself, is what critics have seized on. If the initial jibe was intended to make Meloni look weak or desperate, the escalation achieved the opposite effect. It made Trump appear irritated that she had corrected him publicly, and further irritated that the correction had clearly landed with the wider public.
A conventional diplomatic disagreement would likely have ended after the first exchange. A more conventional political operator might have judged that turning a photo-op dispute with an allied prime minister into a running social media feud was beneath the dignity of the office. Trump instead posted “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED,” and the internet reviewed it accordingly.
The wider pattern
This is not the first instance this year of Trump’s public comments about a NATO ally drawing a direct and specific correction, with Downing Street separately issuing a blunt rebuttal after Trump made false claims about British and other NATO forces’ role in Afghanistan. Taken together with the Meloni episode, a pattern is emerging in which Trump’s public comments about allied leaders and institutions are increasingly met not with diplomatic silence but with direct, publicly issued corrections from the leaders and governments concerned, a dynamic that appears to unsettle Trump considerably more than it does the people correcting him.
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