Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appeared visibly annoyed on Thursday while world leaders awaited the tardy appearance of President Joe Biden at the NATO summit in Washington, DC.
Meloni checked her watch, appeared to realize she was not wearing a watch, rolled her eyes, looked heavenward in exasperation, and scowled.
International media had a field day with Meloni’s unsubtle expressions of annoyance.
The New York Post thought the episode was even more amusing because Meloni was not mugging for the cameras. She did not seem to realize she was on video until after she delivered the biggest eye roll since Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
Meloni has held a front-row seat for Biden’s reported decline, and she does not appear to have enjoyed the show. The New York Post recalled her humorously scolding Biden for keeping her waiting at the G7 meeting in Italy in June, and, during the same meeting, she was the world leader tasked with retrieving Biden after he appeared to wander away from the group photo session at a skydiving demonstration.
The NATO event was scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., but Biden reportedly did not depart the White House until 10:20 a.m., so the summit was delayed until 10:40 a.m.
Biden was also late for his now-infamous “Big Boy” press conference later in the evening, during which he rambled incoherently, alternately whispered and shouted at his audience, and said former President Donald Trump was his vice president. The press conference followed an appearance in which he incorrectly identified Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is a safe bet that Meloni’s eyes were not the only ones to roll on Thursday.
Biden is not the only NATO leader to bear the brunt of Meloni’s eye rolls. She became a viral sensation in June for rolling her eyes at French President Emmanuel Macron and offering him one of the least enthusiastic handshakes since the end of the pandemic at a G7 dinner in Italy, possibly because she was involved in a quarrel with Macron over abortion rights language in the summit declaration.
Meloni also visibly recoils when men she dislikes invade her personal space. She had some awkward body language with Biden when he tried to kiss her at the NATO summit and sparked some humorous commentary in June when she responded to British then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak the same way at the G7 summit.
