It was all jokes between Vice President JD Vance and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as Vance entered the courtyard of Chigi Palace in Rome on Friday. “I’ve been missing you,” Meloni said. The pair had just seen each other the day prior in Washington, DC where Meloni had charmed Donald Trump by simply speaking her native language. The effect was no less potent on the VP:
“Prime Minister Meloni, it’s wonderful to see you again, and I hope that’s exactly what you said,” Vance quipped upon hearing Meloni had praised the previous day’s talks to journalists. “Of course, she could have called me a jerk and I wouldn’t know, but it would be in the most beautiful language imaginable, so I wouldn’t even get offended.”
The vice president will be traveling over the coming week with Second Lady Usha Vance—first in Italy where they’ll be until April 24 corresponding with Easter holiday celebrations and then to India. The spring tour set off with Vance jetting to Rome to meet with Meloni in a continuation of the trade discussions that took place at the White House on Thursday.
Vance and his family attended Good Friday services at St. Peter’s Basilica. He’s set to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, to participate in ceremonies for Easter Sunday, but it’s unlikely the vice president will meet with the pope himself as the 88-year-old recovers from a case of double pneumonia. His visit also comes amid a public clash between the vice president and the pope, and as the White House prioritizes its Christian messaging. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, said he was “looking forward to spending Easter here” during brief remarks to the gathered press outside of Meloni’s office. “This is a place that was built by people that love humans and love God.”
He continued his excitement over traveling for work in a post on X, “I’m grateful every day for this job, but particularly today where my official duties have brought me to Rome on Good Friday. I wish all Christians all over the world, but particularly those back home in the US, a blessed Good Friday.”
The India leg of the tour—which will be the vice president’s first time in the country—will include stops in New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra and meetings set with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to continue discussions around trade relations between the nations.
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
-
Roman Reigns’s Quest to Be WWE’s Next Great Crossover Star
-
Elon Musk’s Breeding Spree Is So Much Wilder Than You Thought
-
This Is How Meta AI Staffers Deemed More Than 7 Million Books to Have No “Economic Value”
-
The Resurrection of Dexter
-
Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, Ranked
-
An Incipient New Anti-Trump Resistance Is Upon Us
-
When The Sopranos Took Off, So Did James Gandolfini
-
Usha Vance’s “Very Lonely, Lonely World”
-
Tom Hanks Is Supportive of His Daughter’s Revealing Memoir About Her Troubled Childhood
-
Meet Elon Musk’s 14 Children and Their Mothers (Whom We Know of)
-
From the Archive: Behind the Nixon-Kennedy Rivalry
The post JD Vance Wouldn’t Mind if You Called Him a Jerk in Italian appeared first on Vanity Fair.
