Jo McKenna: Italy Correspondent on the relationship between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump

A strong relationship is being forged between Italy and the United States. 

Donald Trump has called Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a “fantastic woman”, and says she’s taken Europe "by storm”. 

Meloni was the only European leader present at Trump’s inauguration as President, and had also visited him at his Mar a Lago retreat in Florida a couple of weeks ago.  

Italy Correspondent Jo McKenna told Ryan Bridge that she's positioning herself as the “go to” leader of Europe. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joe McKenna is in Italy for US. Joe, Good morning,
Good morning Ryan. So Trump is talking about the Italian PM,
Georgia Maloney, saying she's a fantastic woman.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, they've already forged a very strong relationship, which is
quite interesting, Ryan, because the Italian Prime Minister was the
only European leader present at his presidential inauguration in Washington, DC,
and she'd also been to see him at his retreat
in mar Lago in Florida just a couple of weeks ago.
So she is filling a vacuum because we're seeing so

(00:32):
much political upheaval in France and Germany at the moment.
She's positioning herself as the European leader, the go to leader.
But she's also got her eye on the big trade
surplus that Italy has with the US worth forty four
billion US dollars. If those tariffs go ahead that mister
Trump is threatening to impose, that's going to cost countries

(00:55):
like Italy a great deal of money.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Absolutely. Let's talk about this report. So it's a commissioned
by the Catholic Church. Dozens of cases of clerical abuse
of kids in northern Italy that's over six decades.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Indeed, and although we've seen so much in the international
sphere in terms of clerical sexual abuse in Australia and
European countries in the US, there hasn't been that much
said in Italy about sexual abuse. And this report was
quite interesting. It was commissioned by a Catholic diocese. A
law firm conducted independent analysis and they found that priests

(01:31):
had abused fifty nine boys and girls, some as young
as eight, over a period of six decades. So it
is quite groundbreaking. But again you've still got to ask
what is being done to track down the offenders and
bring them to justice.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
This board game that's making ways, what's wrong with it?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, there is a board game that's creating a bit
of an outcry in Italy. It's about it invites players
to compete for control of the mafia. So it's called
The Family the Great Mafia War, and it's produced by
a German creator and it simulates mafia wars that rocked
Sicily in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties. Now, of

(02:11):
course there were many people killed there during those that period,
and one of the sisters, a sister of a judge
that was killed At that time, Giovanni Falcone said, this
is absolutely tasteless and offensive to invite participants to use
killings and car bombs to compete with each other.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Goodness, may it's aimed at kids or is it just.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, I think it's aimed at all sorts of age groups.
It is quite quite interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Now I want to finish on this, but I'm sure
it won't take very long. This is the grandson of
Italy's last king. Was wanted to get intimate with his
girlfriend but needed some practice or some help. So what
did he do well?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
This is a rare revelation from a former prince while
he's still a prince, but the royal family no longer
exists in Italy. He's a deposed prince who lives in Switzerland.
Lives in Wannaco, and he has revealed that he had
to hire a prostitute to teach him how to have
sex with his first girlfriend. He hasn't said when that was.
He's now fifty two and tells us that he's living

(03:15):
separately from his wife, but they still have a good relationship.
But he said he's always felt awkward about sex and
had to rely on a prostitute to show him what
to do.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
But he's separated now from his wife.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Did you say, Well, he said they have a good
relationship because they don't live in the same place at
the same time.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Okay, not the first person.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
To say that.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Maybe he's still practicing.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
With you.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
All right, thanks so much, you two. Joe mckinna correspondent
and Eslie.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
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