Mai Implorato: Trump's 'Restraining Order' Meme Reopens the War With Meloni

Italy Today

• Mai implorato, parte due: Trump reopened the feud with Meloni Sunday night, posting a G7 photo — Trump with his back to camera, Meloni gazing up at him — captioned “a restraining order is needed.” It’s the sequel to his June claim that Meloni “begged” for the photo and he obliged “out of pity,” which drew a video response from Meloni’s camp: “Me and Italy never beg.” Palazzo Chigi’s strategy this round, days before the NATO summit in Ankara: silence.

  Review

  “Me and Italy never beg” — outlets (NBC, PBS, CBS) report Meloni’s camp’s actual line as “Neither I nor Italy ever beg.” The brief presents a paraphrase as a verbatim quote. Suggested action: fix the quote.

• Update — courting the Quirinale, not just surviving it: Since we last flagged Vannacci’s Futuro Nazionale chipping at Meloni’s right flank, the story has flipped from threat to overture. Meloni now argues a right-wing head of state shouldn’t be a taboo ahead of the 2029 Quirinale succession, and Vannacci says he’d bring his party’s votes to her — for a price: drop electoral-law preferences, ease off the Draghi agenda, cool it on the Green Deal. Meloni’s answer, more or less: he “wants only to destroy.”

Brooklyn Dispatch

• Update — the Vespucci’s last morning: The Italian Navy’s tall ship Amerigo Vespucci, in New York since July 4 for America’s Sail250 flotilla, opens for free public tours through today at Pier 86 before departing Wednesday morning — her ninth New York visit since 1933, this one on someone else’s anniversary.

  Review

  “Ninth New York visit since 1933” is a specific historical count sourced to a single outlet (Wanted in Rome), with no independent corroboration found. Suggested action: add > [!unverified].

• Update — two days to the Giglio: The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel opens Wednesday on Havemeyer Street — same address since 1903 — with the Dancing of the Giglio, the 4-ton lily hoisted by the paranza, set for July 12. The Vespucci sails out of one harbor the same morning Williamsburg opens the door to another kind of Italian arrival.

Arts & Culture

• Sei per la Strega: Italy’s top literary prize named its six finalists this week — Michele Mari, Matteo Nucci, Bianca Pitzorno, Teresa Ciabatti, Alcide Pierantozzi, Elena Rui — with the 80th edition’s final vote Wednesday in Piazza del Campidoglio, live on Rai 3. Same Wednesday, same country, an entirely different crowd than the one at Pier 86.

• The shrinking blue jersey: Of the twelve Italians who started this year’s Tour de France, most are riding for someone else’s yellow jersey — domestiques for Vingegaard, for Evenepoel — except Filippo Ganna, hunting the Stage 16 time trial, and Damiano Caruso, riding his last Tour before retirement. Barely double digits, and barely any of them racing for themselves.

Parola del Giorno

Parola: implorare (verb) — to implore, to beg; from Latin implorare, “to invoke with tears,” from in- + plorare (“to wail, cry aloud” — the same root behind Italian and English “deplore”). The word sitting at the center of this week’s Trump-Meloni spat: he says she did it at the G7; her government’s answer this round is to not even dignify the accusation with a reply. Usage: “Non ho mai implorato nessuno” — “I’ve never begged anyone.”

Takeaway