Trump Goes After Pope Leo XIV: "Thinks It's Okay for Iran to Have Nukes"

President Donald Trump lashed out late last night (Sunday into Monday) at Pope Leo XIV. In a post on X, he attacked the pope's policies and cast him as weak and lacking foreign-policy understanding: "Pope Leo is weak on crime, and terrible on foreign policy. He talks about 'fear' of a Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear the Catholic Church and other Christian organizations experienced during COVID, when priests, preachers, and others were arrested just for holding services, even when it was outdoors and socially distanced."

Continuing, Trump said: "I like his brother Louie much more than him, because Louie is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn't."

He broadened his critique to security and foreign-policy issues, saying he rejects the pope's positions: "I don't want a pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that the United States attacked Venezuela, a country that sent massive quantities of drugs to the United States and, even worse, emptied its prisons and sent us murderers, drug dealers, and criminals."

Trump added: "And I don't want a pope who criticizes the President of the United States when I'm doing exactly what I was elected to do—and in a landslide—driving crime down to historic lows and creating the greatest stock market in history."

Trump linked the pope's election to his own tenure in the White House: "Leo should be grateful, because, as everyone knows, he was a big surprise. He wasn't on any list to be pope, and he was chosen only because he's American, and the Church thought that was the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I hadn't been in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican."

Near the end of his post, he wrote: "Unfortunately, Leo's weakness on crime and nuclear weapons is unacceptable to me, nor is the fact that he met with Obama supporters like David Axelrod, a loser from the left who was among those who wanted to stop worshippers and clergy."

Trump closed with a call for the pope to change course: "Leo needs to get his act together as pope, use common sense, stop appeasing the radical left, and focus on being a great pope, not a politician. It's hurting him badly, and more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church."