Trump says he’s ‘not a big fan’ of ‘weak’ and ‘terrible’ Pope Leo
President Donald Trump sharply rebuked Pope Leo
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“I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, when asked about his lengthy article on Truth Social Sunday night criticizing the pope.
“We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon. We don’t want a pope who says crime is OK in our cities. I don’t like that. I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo,” Trump added.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, the pope criticized Trump’s public threats to “wipe out” Iranian civilization, saying “attacks on civilian infrastructure are contrary to international law” and urging people to contact leaders and members of Congress to call for peace. He urged Trump to end the war in Iran and lamented in his Easter message last week that the world was “becoming indifferent” to the violence. Leo had also criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“Leo should be grateful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump hasn’t always criticized Leo. At the time, Trump called the pope’s election in May “an honor for our country.”
“It’s such a great honor for our country to have an American pope. I mean, what greater honor could there be? That we were a little surprised, very happy. But just a great, absolutely great honor,” he said at the time.
A March NBC News poll found that American voters viewed Pope Leo more favorably than Trump. Forty-two percent of those surveyed said they had a positive opinion of the pope, while only 8 percent had a negative opinion of him. While 41% of respondents said they had a positive opinion of Trump, 53% said they had a negative opinion of him.
