OMG: Fed up Italian prime minister SMACKS DOWN Trump on world stage

[00:00:00]So, we have a brand new and of course completely unnecessary, completely unforced diplomatic disaster thanks to Trump. Just days ago, Trump went on Italian television and claimed that Georgia Maloney, one of the most aggressively proTrump heads of state on the planet, begged him for a photo at the G7 summit. He said that she wanted the photo so badly that he quote felt sorry for her. Here's the full quote.

[00:00:24]She's probably happy I talked to her. I didn't have to talk to her. She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly I wouldn't have taken it, but I felt sorry for her. Well, it doesn't seem like Maloney enjoyed that reporting or his comment because she decided to issue her own response in her own words. Now, obviously her response was in Italian, but I've dubbed it into English here.

[00:00:46]So, uh, some things deserve an immediate response. Donald Trump's statements are completely made up. I am frankly stunned. I do not know why the president of the United States behaves this way with his own allies. It is not the first time this has happened. After all, I can only say it is a pity he does not show the same resolve with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States, with leaders toward whom he is instead much more accommodating.

[00:01:12]But there is one thing he must remember.

[00:01:14]I and Italy never beg. It got so bad that Italy's own foreign minister then scrapped a planned trip to Washington in protest, saying Trump's comments, quote, offend all of Italy. And look, that's not some random backbencher. That is a sitting cabinet member of one of America's closest NATO allies cancelling a diplomatic visit over a fight about a photo. Why? Because Trump wanted to feel important. Now, I want you to uh sit with that for a second because again, Georgia Maloney is not some uh enemy of Trump. She showed up to his inauguration as the only European leader in the entire room. She spent years as basically his favorite ally on the continent, the one that Republicans point to, as proof that Donald Trump and the European right get along just fine.

[00:01:58]And even she apparently has hit her limit. Also, here's some B-roll footage of their interaction at the G7. This is absolutely unscientific, but judging from her body language alone, does this strike you as somebody who was begging Donald Trump for anything? because it certainly looks to me like there is one person in complete control of this conversation and it's not the tired old fat guy for whom staying awake is an accomplishment. Just a quick note here to say that if you appreciate my work, which is and always will be 100% free, a small ask is if you could please pre-order my new book, The Day After, which explores how Democrats must finally wield power if they're fortunate enough to get it back. I'll also be on tour in DC, New York, and LA mid July.

[00:02:39]You can grab tickets to the tour and you can pre-order the book at the same link which I'll put on the screen and in the post description of this video. You can also find them at brianttylercoen.com/book.

[00:02:50]Again, I'll never pay wall a single piece of content, but this is the one time that I'll ask for some support for a book that I really think meets this moment. Thanks so much. But here's the part that actually matters because this isn't really about a photo. This is a pattern. Maloney said it herself that Trump treats America's actual enemies with more patience than he treats the leaders of democracies, our allies. And she's right. Go down the list. He has praised Vladimir Putin's strength while Putin wages a war of annihilation in Ukraine. He's gushed about Kim Jong-un, a man who runs literal concentration camps. He's flattered Xihinping in China. But then you take a look at how he's treated the allies. Trudeau got nicknamed governor and threatened uh with annexation talk about Canada.

[00:03:33]Denmark, who is a NATO ally for 75 years, got told that uh Donald Trump might take Greenland by force regardless of what they want. Zalinsky got ambushed in the Oval Office on live TV by Donald Trump and JD Vance. And now Maloney, one of his last European cheerleaders, gets accused of graveling for a selfie. Why?

[00:03:53]Because dictators don't challenge him.

[00:03:55]Democracies do. Putin doesn't have a free press asking hard questions. Kim Jong-un doesn't have an opposition party. Xiinping doesn't have courts that can rule against him. These are men who answer to no one. And everything about how Donald Trump talks about power. His envy of leaders who never have to leave office. His habit of treating any check on his authority as a personal betrayal tells you that he wants membership in that club, the autocrat club. The club where men never get challenged. Allies by definition push back sometimes. They have their own elections. They have their own uh publics. They have their own interests. And the second any of them act like an independent country instead of a subordinate, Trump treats it as personal disloyalty. And here's the irony, the part that always catches up with him. The moment he actually needs those allies, they're obviously nowhere to be found. Look at what just happened with the Straight of Hormuz during Donald Trump's war with Iran.

[00:04:51]After the US went to war with Iran and Tyrron effectively shut down that waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil and gas shipments, Trump turned around and demanded that NATO allies send ships to help reopen it. We built the greatest military in the world and we protect people and if we need their mindboats or if we need uh anything any piece of apparatus that they may have because of a situation that they have uh they should be jumping to help us. Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it and some aren't.

[00:05:27]And some are countries that we've helped for many, many years. We've protected them from horrible outside sources and they weren't that enthusiastic.

[00:05:39]>> We have demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory.

[00:05:45]It's the place from which they get their energy and they should come and they should help us protect it. You could make the case that maybe we shouldn't even be there at all because we don't need it. We have a lot of oil. We'll be the number one pollution anywhere in the world times to double at least now. I think it's much higher than that. But we do it. It's almost like we do it for habit. But we also do it for some very good allies. We are talking to other countries about working with us for the police ain't what police with us and we'll have to work militarily. We've as far as I'm concerned we've essentially defeated >> and yet despite Trump's demands he didn't exactly get what he wanted.

[00:06:32]According to Reuters, Germany, Spain, and Italy were among allies that ruled out participating in any mission in the Gulf, at least for now. The German defense minister said, quote, "This is not our war. We have not started it."

[00:06:44]The conflict has nothing to do with NATO and Germany has no plans to be drawn into it. Spain said it would not do anything that could escalate the conflict. While Italian deputy prime minister said that sending military ships to a war zone would be interpreted as joining the conflict. Quote, "Ital is not at war with anyone and sending military ships in a war zone would mean entering the war." This is the trap Trump keeps walking into. He spends years insulting and threatening and undermining the very countries whose military, economic, and diplomatic support he might one day need and then acts genuinely shocked when those countries don't sprint to bail him out.

[00:07:19]You can't joke about annexing Canada and then expect Canada to show up when you're in a crisis. You can't threaten to take Greenland by force and then ask Denmark for ships. You can't call Maloney a beggar on Italian television and then expect Rome to pick up the phone. Alliances run on trust, and trust is the one thing Trump has never bothered to build with anyone who isn't a dictator or an autocrat. He wants the loyalty of the allies combined with the freedom of the autocrats. Total difference, zero accountability. But that's not how democracies work. Thank God. So when his wars and his tariffs and his ego come due, he's going to keep finding the same thing waiting for him.

[00:07:58]An empty room and a long list of allies who remember exactly how they were treated by him. Before you go, I'm very excited to announce that I've written a new book titled The Day After: How to Wield Power in a PostTrump World. The book explores what is, in my opinion, the single most important theme that we're dealing with in politics today and moving forward.

[00:08:19]Power, specifically, how Republicans abuse it and how Democrats refuse to wield it. This book explains how we got here and more importantly, how we should finally wield power if we're fortunate enough to get it back. It is the blueprint for progressives who want to do far more than just restore the status quo. Please pre-order today by visiting the link in the episode description or go to brianttylercohen.com/book.

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