Rome:

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni paid an unofficial surprise visit to President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence, according to her office on Sunday.

Photos sent by the office of the far-right prime minister early Sunday showed Meloni and Trump posing at the entrance to Mar-a-Lago and chatting in a reception room, a Christmas tree visible in the background.

Her office provided no statement, nor did it respond to repeated requests for confirmation of the Saturday visit, which US media reported included a film screening and dinner.

Photos of the two conservative leaders side by side were on the front pages of all Italy’s newspapers Sunday.

Meloni is one of several foreign leaders, including Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who have paid visits to Trump, who is due to be inaugurated for the second time on January 20.

The visit by Meloni, who heads the far-right Brothers of Italy party, comes ahead of a four-day visit to Rome by US President Joe Biden, where he is expected to meet with Meloni and, separately, Pope Francis.

Photographs of Meloni provided by her office also showed her shaking hands with Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Florida to meet with President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday (January 4, 2025), as the key European leader sought to buttress ties with Mr. Trump before his inauguration on January 20.

Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Ms. Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters and others.

Her trip comes days before she is to meet U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to January 12. Trump defeated Biden in the November election and preparing his return to the White House.

While no details of their meeting have been disclosed, Ms. Meloni had planned to talk with Mr. Trump about Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the plight of an Italian journalist detained in Tehran, according to Italian media reports.

Ms. Meloni’s office declined to comment on the reports.

She is seen as a potentially strong partner for Mr. Trump given her conservative credentials and the stability of the right-wing coalition she heads in Italy. She has also forged a close relationship with billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help him win the election.

“This is very exciting. I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy,” Mr. Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd, according to a media pool report. “She’s really taken Europe by storm.”

Mr. Trump and Ms. Meloni then sat down for a screening of a documentary questioning the criminal investigations and legal scrutiny faced by John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who was central to Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

One of the biggest challenges facing Ms. Meloni is the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala in Iran on December 19.

Ms. Sala was detained three days after Mohammad Abedini, an Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2023 attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.

On Friday, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Italy’s ambassador over Abedini’s detention, Iranian state media reported.

Ms. Meloni became the latest in the handful of foreign leaders who have visited Trump in Florida since the November 5 election. He has met with Argentinian President Javier Milei, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Combo picture shows Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni posts a video of her with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on her X account on the sidelines of the G7 Outreach Summit, in Apulia on June 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: ANI

“Hi friends, from #Melodi”, this is how Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni captioned a small selfie video showing her camaraderie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The two leaders met on June 14 towards the end of Prime Minister Modi’s day-long visit to Apulia, southern Italy, during which he thanked the Italian Prime Minister for the invitation to attend the G7 Summit. This was his first foreign visit after assuming charge for a historic third term as the prime minister.

The five-second video was shared by Ms. Meloni on her X account on June 15.

“Hello from the Melodi team,” the 47-year-old Italian leader, the country’s first woman Prime Minister, said in the video, in which Mr. Modi, 73, was seen laughing behind her.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi re-shared the video and wrote, “Long live India-Italy friendship!”.

Earlier on June 15, a selfie of the two leaders at the G7 Summit went viral.

In December last year, the two leaders had clicked a selfie on the sidelines of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai.

Sharing the picture, Ms. Meloni wrote in the caption, “Good friends at COP28, #Melodi.” During their bilateral talks on June 14, the two leaders reviewed the progress of the bilateral strategic partnership and agreed to strengthen cooperation in global fora and multilateral initiatives, including the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.

“Had a very good meeting with PM @GiorgiaMeloni,” Prime Minister Modi wrote on X.

“We discussed ways to further cement India-Italy relations in areas like commerce, energy, defence, telecom and more. Our nations will work together in futuristic areas like biofuels, food processing and critical minerals,” he said after the meeting.

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni has separated from her television journalist partner Andrea Giambruno. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday she had separated from her television journalist partner Andrea Giambruno, who has drawn criticism in recent weeks for sexist comments made on and off air.

“My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost 10 years, ends here,” PM Meloni wrote on her social media accounts. “Our paths have diverged for some time, and the time has come to acknowledge it,” she added.

The couple have a seven-year-old daughter.

Mr. Giambruno is the presenter of a news programme transmitted by Mediaset, part of the MFE media group owned by the heirs of the late Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier and Meloni ally.

On two days this week, another Mediaset show broadcast off-air excerpts from Mr. Giambruno’s programme showing him using foul language and appearing to make advances to a female colleague.

“Why didn’t I meet you before?”, he tells her.

In the second, more explicit recording aired on Thursday, Mr. Giambruno is heard boasting about an affair and telling female colleagues they can work for him if they take part in group sex.

The TV journalist had already been widely criticised in August for apparent victim-blaming comments following a gang rape case.

“If you go dancing, you have every right to get drunk – there shouldn’t be any kind of misunderstanding and any kind of problem – but if you avoid getting drunk and losing your senses, you might also avoid running into certain problems and coming across a wolf,” he said during his programme.

PM Meloni had said after that episode that she should not be judged for comments made by her partner, and that in future she would not answer questions about his behaviour.