U.S. President Donald Trump with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in the White House Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)
Tensions between the Trump administration and the Italian government flared when U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni "begged" to be in a photo with him during the recent G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains, France. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani was so offended that he canceled a visit to the United States. Now, according to liberal SiriusXM host Zerlina Maxwell, Italian media outlets have a devastating new insult for Trump — including those on the right.
During a late June appearance on SiriusXM colleague Dean Obeidallah's show, Maxwell — who has been living in Sicily — was asked how Trump is being covered in European media. And she noted that Italian media routinely describe Trump as a coglione, a crude yet funny term that essentially means "idiot" or "imbecil" in Italian.
Maxwell, sounding amused, told Obeidallah, "The headline that's going pretty viral right now is they call him coglione. I'm not saying that completely correct, but it means idiot. Like, roughly translated, right? It's one of the first words I learned in Italian. And I think that's because of the little kerfuffle with Meloni in that Trump claims she begged him for a picture — and she's like, 'I and Italy don't beg.'"
Maxwell continued, "And I think that Italy that doesn't beg — that's the thing that I think that people are buzzing about."
Maxwell noted that in Sicily, her "community" is a "combination of expats from all over the world and all over Europe" as well as Sicilians.
"It's a mixed bag in terms of how much people are even talking or thinking about Trump on any given day," Maxwell told Obeidallah. "But I think this latest thing is something that — I expect people to bring this up to me. Because I've seen it in my feeds on the Italian pages that I follow. The algorithm is now giving me that."
Maxwell pointed out that the term coglione isn't just being used to insult Trump in liberal or progressive media outlets in Italy; she's also seeing it on a regular basis in an Italian "right-wing newspaper."
"In the right-wing newspaper," Maxwell told Obeidallah, "that was the headline — that Trump is an idiot."
Obeidallah both noted how right-wing Meloni is politically, stressing that even on the right, Trump is making enemies.
Obeidallah said of Trump and Meloni, "She's fighting back. She's like, 'Worry about your own popularity, buddy. You're talking about my popularity. You're very unpopular.' He's alienating everyone."
