In the latest “unprecedented” feud that is “dividing” Republican voters — so we are told — President Donald J. Trump took aim at Pope Leo XIV after the pontiff criticized him over the Iran War.
After Pope Leo took issue with Trump’s hyperbolic threat to end Iranian civilization immediately preceding the ceasefire, the president blasted the pontiff on Truth Social, saying, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Trump also claimed that the pope was pandering to the radical Left, and he called for him to “[…] focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” The pope has also previously criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policy, echoing the modern Catholic Church’s pro-immigration stance. While framed exclusively as a moral issue, this stance is also obviously based in self-preservation, as church leaders seek Catholic Latino immigrants to retain and boost Mass-going numbers.
The media, who support religion when they can repurpose it to their advantage, was quick to run with the feud as the latest topic that is supposedly damaging Trump with his own voters. There was talk of how his remarks were dividing Catholics, though it’s safe to say Catholics are already pretty divided on following their own church’s teachings. There was speculation that both Trump’s remarks and the follow-up AI image jokingly presenting himself as a Messiah would hurt him in the midterms.
Much like the wanton Epstein conspiracy-theorizing since 2025, the media enjoys promoting stories that it can claim will lead to a fracturing of the Republican base. But it is safe to say that any voters turning on Trump over a political disagreement with the pope weren’t strong supporters of him to begin with. It’s also safe to say that anyone who has changed their mind on Trump based on deportations or the Iran War, did not need confirmation to do so from the pope.
Pope Leo, for his part, recently said that he was not interested in debating Trump about the Iran War, but that he would continue preaching a message of peace going forward. His remarks on immigration and war have been entirely unsurprising and consistent with modern Catholic messaging on the subjects. Trump is also right about the inherently political aspect of these topics, which is why he weighed in. And despite the media’s attempt to make it the latest Trump outrage du jour, a legitimate disagreement with the pope isn’t going to have a huge impact on the midterms.
