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The President Picked a Fight With the Pope. It Is Not Going Well for Him.
Donald Trump has been publicly attacking Pope Leo XIV, America's first-ever pope, over the Iran war. Repeating claims the Vatican says are false, while nearly 6 in 10 Americans side with the pontiff.
Pope Leo XIV and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Vatican
There are a lot of powerful people Donald Trump has feuded with. None of them hold an American passport and run the Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIV is the first US-born pontiff in the Catholic Church's 2,000-year history. He is from Chicago. He is a White Sox fan. And right now, the President of the United States is publicly accusing him of endangering Catholics.
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This is not going the way Trump planned.
It started in March when Leo called the US war against Iran unacceptable and criticized the use of Christian rhetoric to justify military action. Trump responded on social media, accusing the pope of being soft on crime and terrorism.
Then he kept going.
Trump claimed in a radio interview that the pope thinks it is fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and that he is endangering Catholics and people around the world.
There is one significant problem with that claim.
The pope has never said any such thing. The Catholic Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for decades. Pope Francis declared even the possession of nuclear arms immoral in 2017. Leo restated that position within days of his election.
The Vatican did not stay quiet.
Leo responded directly, telling reporters that the mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel and preach peace, and that if someone wants to criticize him for that, they should do so with the truth.
That last phrase landed exactly the way it was meant to.
If you have followed this far, here is where the political picture gets genuinely strange.
A YouGov poll found that 48% of Americans side with Pope Leo on the Iran war, while only 28% agree with Trump. Among Catholics specifically, 48% said it was appropriate for the pope to criticize the president's policies, while only 21% said it was appropriate for Trump to criticize Leo.
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans had a negative reaction to Trump's comments about the pope overall.
So Trump dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Rome to smooth things over.
Rubio is a practicing Catholic. He attends Mass. The president he serves just spent weeks publicly attacking his pope on radio shows and social media.
At a press briefing before the Vatican meeting, Rubio was asked whether he agreed that the pope was endangering Catholics. He denied Trump had ever said it, despite the remarks being on tape and available for anyone to hear.
Rubio ultimately spent more than 45 minutes with Pope Leo and over two hours inside the Apostolic Palace. The Vatican said they discussed the Middle East, conflicts in Africa and the situation in Cuba. The State Department described it as underscoring the strong relationship between the US and the Holy See.
The pope gave Rubio a pen made from olive wood. The plant of peace.
Rubio gave the pope a crystal football with the State Department seal on it.
Since his election, Leo has not had any direct contact with Trump on the public record. The Vatican has also made clear there will be no papal visit to the United States in 2026.
Republican strategists have privately raised concerns that Trump's feud with the pope could hurt Trump-aligned candidates in the midterm elections, pushing Catholic voters to choose between their religious beliefs and their political allegiances.
Leo, for his part, has been consistent throughout. He said it is not in his interest to debate the president. He said he came to his recent Africa trip as a pastor, not a politician. He said the Church's mission is peace and that he simply hopes to be heard.
As one columnist summarized it, in this contest between a pope and a president, the president looks weak and erratic. Between Trump and Pope Leo, there is only one man demonstrating strength and moral consistency on the world stage.
Trump's response to that assessment was to renew his attacks anyway.
A sitting US president is feuding with the first American pope in history over a war the pope never endorsed and nuclear weapons the pope explicitly opposes. And the polls are telling him clearly which side the public is on.
He has not stopped. And Leo has not blinked.
Editor's Note: The feud between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV represents an unprecedented moment in US political and religious history. With midterms approaching and Catholic voters watching closely, the outcome of this standoff carries consequences well beyond a diplomatic disagreement between Washington and Rome.
