Trump’s feud with Pope Leo could hurt Trump

A widening feud between US President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV has erupted into a deeply unusual political and spiritual clash, one that could carry real consequences for the Republican leader as November’s pivotal US mid-term elections draw closer.

Mr Trump has come under fire, including from some of his own allies, after lashing out at the US-born pontiff, who has condemned the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, its intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The dispute threatens to unsettle the religious right, a key bloc in the president’s political coalition.

For now, the extraordinary confrontation between the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military and the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics appears far from over.

“There’s nothing to apologise for. He’s wrong,” the 79-year-old Mr Trump told reporters at the White House yesterday.

Mr Trump later shared — and then deleted — an AI-generated image that appeared to cast him in a Christ-like role. Yesterday, he insisted he believed the picture showed him as a doctor.

Pope Leo, meanwhile, struck a defiant tone while speaking to reporters aboard the papal plane on his way to Africa earlier yesterday, saying he has “no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel”.

Earlier this month, Leo denounced Mr Trump’s threat to destroy a “whole civilisation” in Iran as “truly unacceptable”. He has also previously described Mr Trump’s mass deportation drive as “inhuman”.

Mr Trump, the three-times married billionaire, has for years cultivated support among America’s evangelical Christians by championing a conservative, nativist agenda.

That alliance held through his election victories in 2016 and 2024, despite repeated scandals and persistent questions over his own personal relationship with religion.

The social media post by Donald Trump depicted an AI-generated image of himself apparently as Jesus

But during his second term, Mr Trump appeared to embrace an even more overtly religious posture.

At his inauguration last year, he said he had been “saved by God” after surviving a 2024 assassination attempt on the campaign trail, and he has since adopted a sharper spiritual message in public.

Even so, his conduct over the Easter period raised eyebrows.

On the morning of Easter Sunday, as Christians marked the holy day around the world, Mr Trump posted a profanity-laced warning telling the “crazy b***ards” of Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face consequences, before ending the message, bizarrely, with: “Praise be to Allah.”

Then, after talks with Iran failed to produce a breakthrough and tensions appeared to mount, came Sunday’s fresh attacks on Pope Leo.

“I am disheartened that the president chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father,” the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, said in a statement.

Still, at least one prominent Catholic in Mr Trump’s administration moved quickly to defend the president over the pontiff.

US Vice President JD Vance, a recent convert, told Fox News yesterday, “in some cases, 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”.

There was no immediate reaction from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Catholic.

More troubling for the White House may be the backlash building on the religious right, especially from figures who were once firmly in Mr Trump’s corner.

Any softening of support could deepen Republican anxieties about losing control of Congress in November’s mid-term elections, particularly with the economy already under pressure from high oil prices linked to the Iran war.

“On Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump’s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus,” one time ally and former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene said.

“This comes after last week’s post of his evil tirade on Easter and then threatening to kill an entire civilisation. I completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!”

Conservative commentator Riley Gaines also condemned the apparent Jesus image.

“Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this,” Ms Gaines said on X, urging Mr Trump to show humility and adding: “God shall not be mocked.”