(Dobbs) Italy's Prime Minister: "As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it."A federal judge writes of "the Trump administration’s well-established history of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the President’s political and personal adversaries.”
Donald Trump is taking his knocks. It is high time. Yesterday for example, news came out that the chief federal judge in the state of Minnesota ruled that when Trump’s justice department issued subpoenas to Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other local officials back in January in the wake of the deadly conflicts in Minneapolis during anti-ICE protests, its purpose wasn’t justice, it was coercion. In a barbed rebuke to the administration, Judge Patrick Schlitz wrote, “The Department has struggled — without success — to identify a single plausible investigatory justification for the subpoenas.” The law the justice department employed to carry out criminal investigations of these political leaders was conspiracy to impede a federal investigation, which it justified because they wouldn’t turn over certain records the feds demanded. The truth is, the only government body to impede any investigations after the killings of two protesters that month was the federal government, which collected evidence after the shootings but withheld it from local and state police. In his decision to quash the subpoenas, Judge Schlitz pulled no punches. “This course of events — in and of itself — establishes beyond reasonable dispute that the subpoenas were a part of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials in Minnesota to assist the Trump administration in its enforcement of immigration laws. And, of course, this campaign played out against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s well-established history of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the President’s political and personal adversaries.” Also yesterday, Vice President Vance, fresh from his negotiations in Switzerland with counterparts from Iran, proclaimed as if it were some great triumph by the Trump administration that Iran has agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to assess Iran’s nuclear program. “This is a major milestone for the American people,” Vance declared, “and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.” Maybe a major milestone for the American people, but also a major embarrassment for President Trump. Because what it does is establish terms that President Obama established in 2015 when he negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. A plan Trump put in the shredder. In other words, there already were inspectors there from the atomic energy agency until Trump tore up Obama’s deal, calling it “horrible,” “defective at its core,” “one sided,” a “road to a nuclear weapon,” and “one of the worst and dumbest agreements ever made by the U.S.” Last Wednesday in his speech at the G7 summit in France, Trump crudely told his audience that the Iranians had “laughed at Obama, and they said, ‘He’s a stupid son of a bitch.’” So who’s the ‘stupid son of a bitch’ now? We’re supposed to be grateful that Trump is getting us back to where we were before he trashed the treaty. It’s kind of like the Strait of Hormuz. If at some point Trump manages to truly free up the waterway, he’ll celebrate it as some sort of victory, even though it never would have been shut down if he hadn’t started his war. And anyway, if the Iranians did laugh at Obama, the last laugh might be on Trump. After his vice president made his unequivocal proclamation about Iran allowing inspectors in, Iran’s foreign ministry said, “Not so fast.” Last summer, after the American and Israeli attacks on their nuclear facilities, the Iranian parliament suspended cooperation with the nuclear inspectors. Now, the foreign ministry is saying that any relationship with the atomic energy agency will be “in line with resolutions passed by Parliament and decisions of the Supreme National Security Council.” Translation? We didn’t commit to what you say we committed to. And until Parliament says otherwise, the inspectors won’t be let back in. But the most insulting recent reproach of the president came three days ago from a former ally and former fan, in fact the only European leader to come to Trump’s inauguration in 2025: Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Still piqued that Meloni wouldn’t allow American military bases in Italy to serve as staging areas to support his war with Iran, our petty president claimed in an interview with an Italian TV station during the G7 summit, “She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her.” Except Meloni says that’s a total lie. In a video she posted on X, the prime minister said, “Donald Trump’s statements are completely made up. I am frankly astonished. I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies. It is not the first time, moreover.” But she didn’t stop there. “I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence. There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg.” She joins the ranks of other leaders who finally have had their fill of Donald Trump. Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez refused to take part in the war, writing, “The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” After Trump said he didn’t need help from British troops in the Iran war because in Afghanistan, “They stayed a little back, little off the front lines,” the U.K.’s prime minister Keir Starmer called his comments “insulting and frankly appalling.” They also were wrong. Germany’s chancellor was equally blunt about Trump’s failed efforts in April to start peace talks: “An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards.” But the political hero whose ranks Italy’s leader has now joined is Canadian prime minister Mark Carney. When he spoke at the economic summit in Davos last January, Carney denounced Trump’s use of tariffs as weapons of extortion. The “middle powers” he said, “must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Today though, Giorgia Meloni deserves the praise. After Trump said she is doing “poorly in Italy with her level of popularity,” she wrote, “President Trump, these constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless. As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you.” She topped it off with, “My popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.” Leave a comment Madam Prime Minister, you go, girl. We won’t even mention the murky green algae and the peeling blue paint because of the botched job Trump did on the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool. It’s an embarrassing failure he can’t hide. Donald Trump is taking his knocks. It is high time. Share © 2026 Greg Dobbs |