Trump Doubles Down Attacks On Pope, Refuses To Apologize

President Donald Trump refused to apologize for his weekend comments tearing into Pope Leo XIV as a “weak” leader who caters to the radical left.

Trump on Sunday blasted the Pope as “weak” on multiple issues, and said the Christian leader should “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” Trump ran through a list of complaints on issues from Iran and Venezuela to crime and drugs in the Truth Social post. That fury came after the pontiff took issue with Trump’s comments about the Iran war and his threat to end a “whole civilization.” At an Oval Office presser on Monday, Trump doubled down on his criticisms after he was asked by a reporter whether he owes the Pope an apology.

“I don’t, because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran, and you cannot have a nuclear Iran. Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result,” Trump told reporters. “You have hundreds of millions of people dead and it’s not going to happen, so I can’t. I think he’s very weak on crime and other things, so I’m not. I mean, he went public.”

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“I’m just responding to Pope Leo,” Trump continued. “And, you know, his brother is a big MAGA person and he’s a great guy, Louis. And I said, I like Louis better than I like the Pope. Now you have to have law and order in our country and that’s what we have now. We have the lowest crime numbers we’ve had in a long time, despite the fact that many criminals were allowed into our country, but we’ve gotten a lot of them out. We’ve done a great job on crime.”