Republican strategist Doug Heye is alarmed by the rift between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a right-wing leader who was initially close with Trump but is now on the outs with him.
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Tensions came to a head on Friday as Meloni posted a public video raging about Trump’s false claim that she had “begged” to get a photo with him at the G7 summit.
“Doug, you say that this dispute between Trump and Meloni is an embarrassment,” said CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Friday’s edition of CNN’s “OutFront.”
“It’s an embarrassment, and it comes at the very worst time, I think, possible that it could for the president and frankly, for the global coalition that the U.S. has put together over decades,” said Heye, who has often fretted about the drama Trump creates in his party.
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Notably, he said, when Meloni was first put in office, “she was viewed as sort of like an Italian MAGA candidate. So she and Trump were going to get along famously.” However, he continued, Meloni is now learning what “so many other people learn about Donald Trump if they get close to him,” which is that “Donald Trump doesn’t give points. He only takes them away one at a time.”
The consequences of the rift could be far-reaching, Heye warned.
“Whether you’re talking about Europe — and by the way, things aren’t terribly stable in England right now either — and what that means for Iran and thus the whole world are really important right now, I would want to keep our allies as close as possible,” said Heye, but Trump appears totally unconcerned with this. “It’s a huge gamble.”
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