President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on social media on Sunday, saying the first American pope should stop catering to the Radical Left and blasting him as weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. A short time later, Trump repeated the criticism to reporters after Air Force One landed outside Washington from Florida, saying, “We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump added that he is not a fan of Leo and called him “a very liberal person,” sharpening a public split that has now spilled from social media into a direct exchange with the Vatican. The remarks landed on the same day Leo was preparing to leave Monday for an 11-day trip to Africa.
The clash matters because it follows Leo’s weekend warning against what he called the “delusion of omnipotence” fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. The pope did not mention the United States or Trump by name, but he demanded that political leaders stop and negotiate peace while presiding over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica as the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire.
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Trump framed the dispute around Iran’s nuclear ambitions, saying, “I don’t want a pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” The confrontation is notable not just because Leo is the first American pope, but because it ties the church’s message of restraint to a highly charged debate over war, diplomacy and nuclear risk at a moment when ceasefire talks are underway and the White House is making clear it sees the pope’s language as political.
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What happens next is set by the calendar. Leo leaves Monday for Africa, while the war over Iran, the ceasefire and the talks in Pakistan continue to test whether the pope’s call for peace can land anywhere beyond the Vatican walls.
