Trump hits out at Italy’s Meloni and says she ‘lacks courage’

Giorgia Meloni had been seen as a natural ally of Donald Trump (Evan Vucci, Pool/AP)

US President Donald Trump has turned his fire on Italian premier Giorgia Meloni after she called his criticism of Pope Leo XIV “unacceptable” and did not back the US-Israel war on Iran.

“I thought she had courage,” Mr Trump said in an interview with leading Italian daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera. “I was wrong.”