Trump lambasts Pope Leo XIV, extending feud over Iran war with first American pontiff
Apr 12, 2026, 7:20 PM | Updated: 9:08 pm
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, April 12, 2026, after he returned from Miami. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on social media on Sunday, saying the first American pope should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
It was an extraordinary broadside against the global leader of the Catholic Church, exacerbating a feud that began over the war in Iran.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote on social media.
Soon afterward, he spoke to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, where he landed on Air Force One.
“I don’t think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump said, adding that “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.”
Trump’s post followed Leo having denounced over the weekend the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace.
Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire.
The U.S.-born pope didn’t mention the United States or Trump by name in his prayer. But Leo’s tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials, who have boasted of U.S. military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.
