President Donald Trump sharply rebuked Pope Leo XIV in remarks to reporters and on social media Sunday, calling the first American leader of the Catholic Church “WEAK on crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.”
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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 he was asked about his lengthy Truth Social post Sunday night criticizing the pope.
“We don’t like a pope that’s going to say that it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon. We don’t want a pope that says crime is OK in our cities. I don’t like it. I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo,” Trump added.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pope last week criticized Trump’s public threats to “wipe out” Iranian civilization, saying “attacks on civilian infrastructure are against international law” and urging people to contact leaders and members of Congress to call for peace. He has urged Trump to end the war in Iran, and he lamented in his Easter message last week that the world is “becoming indifferent” to violence. Leo had also criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“Leo should be thankful 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 an 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 been critical of 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 bit surprised, very happy. But just a great, absolutely great honor,” he said at the time.
A March NBC News poll found U.S. voters viewed Pope Leo more favorably than Trump. Forty-two percent of respondents said they had positive views of the pope, while just 8% had negative views of him. While 41% of respondents said they had positive views of Trump, 53% said they had negative views of him.
