Jo McKenna: Europe Correspondent on the heatwave sweeping Europe, Meloni v Trump
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What impact is the heatwave having on Europe?
Joe, how are you doing? Great, Mike, how are you? So, I've been looking forward to talking to you, and I mean, that's just a general statement, but specifically, I mean, after the weekend, I mean, honestly, Trump is such a dick, isn't he? I mean, that Maloney thing, I mean, what the hell is that about?
Wow. I mean, reverberations around the world, as we know, after Donald Trump accused Prime Minister Giorgio Melani of begging him for a photo at the G7. Was there a bit of misogyny there? I don't know. I think he's free falling with a lot of attacks on various people. She hit back. We had more tensions going backwards and forwards at the weekend. But I thought it was interesting when he tried again to say that she was using him with this photo to try and get her numbers up. She was particularly strong, saying, my popularity depends on my ability to defend the Italian national interest, and that's exactly what I've done.
If you ran a poll, most Italians would have backed her. Head to head, most Italians would have, one, believed her over Trump, and two, backed her, excuse me, in what she said.
Yeah, in fact, I was looking tonight to see if we had any fresh poll numbers. I didn't see anything fresh, but what I did see was her social media was attracting thousands, more than 30,000 comments on Instagram and Facebook in multiple languages. I don't know if that's genuine, but I assume it is. People just congratulating her, saying, well done, standing up to Trump. Awesome.
Now, she was also making, I don't know whether she begged for a photo opportunity with Mr Rutter today, but how did that all go?
Yeah, well, it's a bit of a row going on here because the NATO Secretary-General, Mark Reuter, said that 500 US flights took off from bases in Italy during the Iran war. That's a very sensitive issue because Italy has been trying to say no one has been allowed access to combat missions at the bases here. That has to be authorised. But that's a bit of a political row, so the Italians are trying to play that down. and I'm not quite sure where the truth lies at the moment.
Okay. Is it hot?
It's very, very hot. It's like an oven out there.
What have you got? I mean, they're unable to cope in France and the poms are beside themselves. Where are you at on the scale of I can't handle life?
I think we're a bit more accustomed to it in Italy than, say, in Paris.
How are air conditioning habits changing in Europe?
I've heard how bad it is up there. But having said that, four people died in the heatwave here in Italy today, two farmers in northern Italy, a homeless man in Naples today, and another man died in the heat. We've got 17 cities on red alert tomorrow. That means healthy people are even warned to be wary of the heat, stay out of the heat, drink lots of water and stay inside wherever you can.
What's the air conditioning situation? Because what I find fascinating is the poms especially go, oh, we're not used to this. And yet they've been saying that for the last five or six or seven years. When do you get used to it? How many times do you have to have a hot summer and spring before you actually get used to it?
yeah exactly i i think people here are not so used to air conditioning use mainly probably for economic reasons and as a sign of of some spike in air conditioning use we've seen energy blackouts in milan naples and turin in the last few days so and also i should say pressure on health services a demand for health services at the hospitals is up 15 so a lot of pressure on the system here
Berlusconi's Villa, which you and I have talked about extensively before, and you know how I feel about Berlusconi and his villa. In fact, I like his villa more than I like Berlusconi, and I love Berlusconi. That at $350 million is a pricey wee number, but my God, what a beautiful place.
Well, yeah. I mean, we haven't even seen all the pictures of Villa Certoza. It's been bought by a Qatari sheik. That's been confirmed today, part of the royal family in Qatar. €350 million. What does it get you? Apparently it gets you a vast garden, an amphitheatre on the grounds.
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