For reasons that still don’t make sense, Donald Trump picked a fight with Pope Leo XIV, of all people, lashing out at the pontiff on Sunday night as someone who “likes crime,” caters to “to the Radical Left,” is taking steps that are “hurting the Catholic Church” and has met with “Obama Sympathizers.”
On Monday, the president was offered an opportunity to apologize, or at least to walk back his rhetorical offensive. He refused, insisting again that the pope “said things that are wrong.” A day later, the Republican kept going, scolding the pontiff during an interview with an Italian newspaper; shortly before midnight on Tuesday night, Trump apparently thought it would be a good idea to chide the pope once again by way of his social media platform.
Not to be outdone, his vice president — the first Catholic Republican to ever hold the office — has joined the rhetorical offensive.
On Monday night, JD Vance appeared on Fox News and insisted that “it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality … and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” Putting aside the fact that the president isn’t supposed to be “dictating” anything, the Ohio Republican’s advice didn’t make a lot of sense: The pope drew Trump’s ire by speaking out on matters such as a deadly and destabilizing war in the Middle East and the plight of immigrants seeking a better life, both of which are, by any reasonable measure, “matters of morality.”
A day later, he upped the ante in an unexpected way. NBC News reported:








