“Let Me Help You Do What I Want You To Do!”

© Richard Bolstad, 2026

Trump and Meloni: The Background of a Conflict

I’m writing this on Sunday 21 June, 2026, at the time of a very interesting disagreement between the President of the United States (Donald Trump) and the Prime Minister of Italy (Giorgia Meloni). As a disclaimer, I am a New Zealand citizen and so do not vote for either government, and I do not approve of the political platform of either person. I intend to use their conversation as a publicly available example of a communication pattern that frequently occurs in both business and family situations. I will then draw some conclusions about how to avoid the consequences. If you, like me, have strong emotions about Donald Trump, I’m asking you to put those aside and be temporarily grateful for the opportunity to consider his interaction as an example of something that happens very commonly in our relationships.

After winning election in 2022, Meloni “became a familiar face within Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement.” (de Candia, 2026). They shared many views about immigration and cultural/gender politics, and American Vice President J.D. Vance called Meloni “a bridge between the two sides of the Atlantic.” However over the next years, they had differences about military support of Ukraine, and Italy was not spared Trump’s trade tariffs in 2025, so by 2026, when Trump criticised the Catholic Pope Leo XIV, Meloni needed to distance herself from him (bearing in mind that 79% of Italians, about the same percentage who identify as Catholic, now held negative views on Trump – de Candia, 2026). Meloni also declined to allow US planes to land in Italy on their way to bomb Iran in March 2026, saying that rules about their use were set by Italy’s previous agreements in NATO.

In June 2026, Trump and Meloni were filmed sitting together on a couch and having a one to one conversation at the G7 summit at Evian-les-Bains in eastern France. Soon after this, in a phone interview with Italy’s La7 TV channel, Trump explained “She begged me to take a photo with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her. She’s probably happy I spoke to her,” In response, Meloni said in an Instagram video that she was “frankly stunned”. “Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated. I don’t know why the US president behaves this way towards allies…. I can only say it is regrettable he does not show the same determination towards the enemies of the West and towards the enemies of the US – whose leaders he instead appears to be far more accommodating with. But there is one thing he needs to remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg.” (Kirby et alia, 2026).

In response on Truth Social, Trump wrote that Meloni asked him for a photo “over and over…. She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy,” and added “Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up’. No thanks!!!” Saying this would be her final comment on the matter, Meloni replied in Instagram “[As for my popularity], being your friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you…. In any case, my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.” (AFP, 2026)

Understanding The Double Message

This relatively personal conflict between Trump and Meloni may seem a rather obvious interaction similar to many between Trump and other world leaders, but it provides us with an excellent, simple example of a common communication problem between friends (and both Trump and Meloni agree, above, that they have previously been friends). Trump explains that he “felt sorry for” Meloni, and his guess was that she was happy to be spoken to by him, and also that she really wanted his support. He thus indicates that he is trying to help her with a problem she has (her popularity, her “numbers”). Meloni rejects this theory completely. She says her popularity would actually be harmed by following Trump’s suggestions, and that anyway her popularity is not Donald Trump’s concern. She both rejects his offer of help, and also says he is wrong in his suggestions about how to improve her situation.

It is tempting to dismiss Trump’s response as being arrogant, misogynistic, imperialist, and even narcissistic. Meloni describes his comments as an example of his “constant, unprovoked attacks.” Remember, I do not agree with either of these people’s views, and I actually think all those labels are appropriate … and I also know that labels are invented categories. From Trump’s perspective, he took the time to talk to Meloni and she responded by smiling, and presumably they spoke about some things they agreed on (the conversation is seen on camera). He says he interpreted this smiling and willingness to talk as appreciation of his approach, and therefore as appreciation of his offer of “help”. It is not too far from all of our personal experiences to imagine that he proceeded from there to experience these responses as what NLP would call the “complex equivalent” of begging him to be observed on film.

These two people both claim to have been friends. Neither of them intended to become enemies. One common way to interpret Trump’s responses is to say that he was “lying”. In that interpretation, he knew that Meloni did not want his help, and he intended to “attack” her. The more NLP-aligned way of interpreting the events is that he had two internally conflicting impulses: Firstly, he genuinely wanted (as he claimed) to help Meloni build her popularity, and to help Italy. Secondly, he was annoyed with what he believed was her personal refusal to allow American planes to land in Italy. He has frequently explained that in his model of the world, a true leader simply makes decisions, rather than obeying preset rules and checking with other people. When the UK’s Starmer said he needed to get permission for the same decision in Britain, Trump told him “You don’t need to meet your team, you’re the Prime Minister …  it’s the same thing here.” (Guardian, 2026).

When someone has two conflicting motivations, as I am suggesting Trump had here, the emotionally simple way for them to deal with the conflict is to believe that the more socially acceptable motivation (In this case, “I am trying to help you become more popular”) is the only one they need to reveal. This is especially common when a person has grown up being forbidden to express “negative” emotions, such as being annoyed with someone. Donald Trump’s niece explained about Donald’s father that “Fred Trump’s adherence to positivity “left no room for expressions of what he considered negativity of any kind…you know, sadness, despair, being physically ill”” (Collinson, 2020). However when a person chooses to hide negative emotions, their other motivation then “leaks out” in nonverbal and presuppositional communication. Notice that when Trump describes Meloni’s problem, as he assumes it to be, the entire comment about her action that annoyed him is inserted as a presuppositional comment in the middle:  “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy.” He says, in sequence, a) I want to help you, and b) you did the wrong thing, and c) I always aim to love and protect you.

This double message makes it challenging for the other person to congruently respond of course. “Meloni had said at the end of the G7 summit in Evian that the atmosphere had been “very positive” and that there was “no friction” between Trump and other leaders.” (AFP, 2026) After Trump’s later comments, and her own clarifying that she had not intended to “beg” and nor had Italy, Meloni finally announced that she would not return to the subject (Sky News, 2026). That is to say, the discussion is over. She is not willing to keep trying to untangle a conversation where two apparently contradictory messages are being sent (“I am trying to help you” vs “I am criticising you”).

Problem Ownership: A Way Forward

It is my belief that all of us have experienced each side of this type of situation at some point in our friendships. I have little hope that Donald Trump will read this article, have an epiphany, and change to communicate more “congruently” (choosing to offer “help” when he feels completely empathic and supportive, and to offer “assertive criticism” separately when he feels annoyed with what someone has done).

In my book “Transforming Communication” (2015, p. 104-113) I introduce a model for understanding the interpersonal aspect of this conflict. I call this “Happiness Ownership”, based on the earlier model of “Problem Ownership” developed by Dr Thomas Gordon. The model suggests that effective skills for relationships vary depending on who is “happy” and who “owns a problem” about the situation being discussed. If you own a problem about the situation, then you cannot “help” the person, because you will “leak” critical attitudes either verbally or non-verbally or both ways. It is not a matter of choosing better “helping skills”, or making a clearer “helping contract”. It is time to accept that the situation you are in is one calling for you to state your own “problem” in a “I message” (“When this happened, the concrete effect on me was that, and I felt like this.” or just “When this happened, I felt like this.”). You cannot effectively “dress up” your own problem and pretend to be “helping” the other person with their own “problem”, no matter how nicely you dress it up. This will end up with a statement like Meloni’s, where the other person tells you “I just don’t want to talk about this.” … and with you being puzzled as to why the other person won’t “accept your help”.

When the other person has a problem, and you feel happy with the situation, then you can listen. In such situations, the primary skill that successful couples use to help the other person is not advice giving; it is the skill that I call “Reflective listening” (Gottman and Silver, 1999, p. 87-89). They say in effect “So let me check: the problem you have is …, is that right?” This helps the other person clarify their concern, and it also provides the opportunity for the other person to explain, “No, that isn’t a problem for me. You have misunderstood.” If the listener doesn’t have a problem themselves, they would then simply back off.

Almost as blatantly obvious as the Trump-Meloni situation, is an example that I have called “The Three little boy scouts” situation, illustrated in the comic below (Bolstad, 2015, p. 157). It is, of course, a boy scout tradition to try and do one good deed every day. In this story, three boy scouts meet their scout troop leader at the end of the day.

‘OK Johnny?’ the leader asked, ‘what was your good deed for the day?’
‘Well sir,’ smiled Johnny, “I helped an old lady across the road.’
‘Very good,’ the scout leader encouraged. ‘And Timmy, what was your good deed for the day?’
‘Well sir,’ said Timmy, just a little less certainly, ‘I helped the same old lady across the road.’
‘That’s odd. Joey, what was your good deed for the day?’, he asked of the third little boy scout.
‘Well sir,’ said Joey, ‘I helped the same old lady across the road.’
‘Wait a minute. How come it takes three little boy scouts to help one old lady across the road?’
‘Please sir,’ explained Joey, ‘You see sir, she didn’t want to go.’

This does not count, in my terms, as ‘helping’. Helping begins when the person being helped chooses to change. If you discover that they disagree with either your diagnosis of their problem, or with your proposed solution, and you feel annoyed that they don’t change in the way you recommended, then it is YOU who have the unsolved problem, and the skills that will work are skills to explain how you feel about the situation and how it becomes a problem in your model of the world. This means you will probably end up in what Transforming Communication calls a “Values Conflict”. That’s OK – 69% of all marital conflicts are values conflicts of this sort. But if you start off by pretending that you are trying to help the other person, you will not get the conflict “solved” or even able to be discussed. You do not merely need better “helping skills”, better “rapport skills” etc to resolve a conflict. You also need the ability to be more honest about your own opinions and your own emotions, so as not to merely pretend to help others with their opinions and emotions. I know that sounds tough, but hey, if we can expect it of Donald Trump, we can expect it of ourselves, right?

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