Giorgia Meloni recorded a video and told the president of the United States that Italy does not beg.
He felt sorry for her, Trump volunteered on Italian television, because she had begged him for a photo she wanted so badly. That never happened, she says, and the woman he tried to diminish is the same person who told him during the G7 to stop pretending the West abandoned him when he chose to attack Iran.
For years he has told the women who question him to smile or called them pigs, and his contempt got waved off as locker room talk. But the prime minister of Italy will not be grabbed by anything, even metaphorically. Her foreign minister canceled his trip to Washington in protest, and the moment she called out his lie, Trump phoned NBC to insist it was true anyway. The cruelty that used to cost him nothing is now costing us our oldest allies, and he would rather wreck the friendship than admit he made it up.
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Federal immigration authorities held an 8-year-old U.S. citizen in a Brooklyn shelter for nearly seven months, ignoring his birth certificate and releasing him only after a lawsuit and a judge's ruling.
Today’s GovBrief News
Italian Prime Minister Meloni says she is shocked by Trump's completely made-up claim that she begged him for a photo together at the G7.
Source: Euronews
June 19, 2026
Israel kills at least 47 in the deadliest Lebanon strikes since the U.S.-Iran deal, then agrees to a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Source: CBS News
June 19, 2026
Secretary of State Rubio orders a Colombian asylum-seeker detained for criticizing a Trump-endorsed candidate in Colombia's election, calling his advocacy a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
Source: The New York Times [gift link]
June 19, 2026
The Federal Reserve's top banking regulator spoke at a private Bank of America dinner for Wall Street clients during the Fed's blackout period, hours after the rate decision.
Source: The Washington Post
June 19, 2026
The Justice Department opens a civil rights investigation into Major League Baseball after it warned Giants pitchers who wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night caps.
Source: USA Today
June 19, 2026
The Justice Department refuses a judge's order to swear under oath that Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is dead, calling the demand a separation-of-powers violation.
Source: The Hill
June 19, 2026
Judge blocks the Justice Department from releasing Biden's recorded interviews with his biographer for three weeks while he appeals.
Source: UPI
June 19, 2026
The Kennedy Center refuses to book any performances despite a court order to stay open, telling the judge it will decide on closing at a mid-July board vote.
Source: Washingtonian
June 19, 2026
The Interior Department argues a 1910 law capping Washington building heights does not apply to federal projects, clearing Trump's 250-foot arch near Arlington.
Source: The Washington Post
June 19, 2026
Trump blames vandals for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool's peeling paint and accuses an ABC reporter of trying to tear up the surface.
Source: Mediaite
June 19, 2026
Trump unveils the $400 million jet Qatar gave him as a new Air Force One that will pass to his presidential library when he leaves office.
Source: NBC News
June 19, 2026
Chicago votes to buy and renovate its Greyhound bus terminal, saving the hub for 450,000 yearly riders from possible demolition.
Source: Smart Cities Dive
June 19, 2026
A Trump-appointed judge orders the Milwaukee mosque president freed from ICE detention, finding his arrest may have been retaliation for his pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Source: Wisconsin Public Radio
June 19, 2026