{"id":15238,"date":"2026-04-15T21:37:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T21:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=15238"},"modified":"2026-04-15T21:37:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T21:37:56","slug":"he-made-his-stance-crystal-clear-%f0%9f%98%b3%f0%9f%91%87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=15238","title":{"rendered":"He made his stance crystal clear\u2026 \ud83d\ude33\ud83d\udc47"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Giorgia
Credit: Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images, Stefano Costantino\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Donald Trump is escalating tensions with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, marking a sharp turn in what had once been a friendly political relationship.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The clash comes after Meloni pushed back on\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0criticism of\u00a0Pope Leo XIV.<\/a>\u00a0Meloni, who leads a right-wing government in Italy and is a practicing Catholic, defended the Pope after Trump publicly attacked him, calling him \u201cterrible for foreign policy\u201d and \u201cweak on crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe 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,\u201d she said, according to\u00a0UNILAD.<\/a><\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV recently condemned the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran. His comments followed a warning from Trump. Speaking to reporters, the Pope made it clear he would not be intimidated.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought she was brave, but I was wrong\u201d<\/h2>\n

Trump didn\u2019t take Meloni\u2019s defense lightly. In a phone interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, he launched a direct attack on the Italian leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s her who\u2019s unacceptable, because she doesn\u2019t care if Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow up Italy in two minutes if it had the chance,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

He added that he had been \u201cshocked\u201d by Meloni\u2019s stance, saying: \u201cI thought she was brave, but I was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n

Until now, Trump and Meloni had maintained common ground on several key issues. But Trump\u2019s public feud with Pope Leo appears to have driven a wedge between them.<\/p>\n

Trump has even suggested he played a role in the Pope\u2019s election, claiming the Vatican chose an American leader strategically.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was elected as pontiff because he was American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J Trump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images, Stefano Costantino\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images Donald Trump is escalating tensions with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, marking a sharp turn in what… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15240,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15238\/revisions\/15240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}