Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, 49, is the mirror image of an American MAGA evangelical. She has built her political brand around Italy’s Roman Catholic heritage and traditional family values. She uses her Roman Catholic identity to buttress her political platform, advocating for policies that resonate with Trump supporters, like opposing abortion and LGBTQ rights.

President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are close ideological allies, but they are hardly bosom buddies. The mercurial U.S. president has turned against her amid geopolitical rifts over America’s illegal and immoral war of choice in Iran.

Perhaps the main reason Trump shows Meloni so little respect is that he cannot regard a female political leader as his equal.

Trump sparked a feud with his Italian counterpart by falsely claiming she had begged him for a photograph at the G7 Summit in France and that he agreed only out of pity. The claim is plainly false: world leaders kept their distance from Trump and appeared eager to avoid being near him. Who would want to be within smelling distance of his bad breath and soiled diapers?

The attractive Meloni angrily denied the claim, calling it “made up,” but the repulsive octogenarian doubled down in a post on Truth Social, saying Meloni had asked “over and over” for a photograph during the summit. Trump should not flatter himself; no woman wants a photo-op with such a loathsome creature.

Trump’s pettiness and ego have jeopardized America’s relationship with an ally simply because the female prime minister challenged his self-aggrandizing lie.