President Donald Trump’s war of words with Pope Leo XIV counts as being “in a ditch” and yet still “digging deeper,” quipped one analyst.
“For reasons that still don’t make sense, Donald Trump picked a fight with, of all people, Pope Leo XIV, lashing out at the pontiff as someone who ‘likes crime,’ caters to ‘to the Radical Left,’ is taking steps that are ‘hurting the Catholic Church’ and who’s met with ‘Obama Sympathizers,’” declared MS NOW’s Steve Benen on Monday. “Offered an opportunity to apologize, or at least to walk back his rhetorical offensive, the president refused, insisting again that the pope ‘said things that are wrong.’”
Benen added, “Whether the Republican pays a political price for this odd and unnecessary broadside remains to be seen, but it was his other religio-political controversy that seems to have created an even bigger mess.” He expressed surprise that, given an opportunity to pass off his depiction of himself as Jesus Christ in an AI meme as a joke, Trump instead claimed he was trying to characterize himself as a doctor.
“Instead he relied on Orwellian tactics and asked Americans to pretend they didn’t see what they obviously saw,” Benen explained. Despite these efforts, though, Benen pointed out that “it was many of his own allies, who characterized the image as offensive and blasphemous.”
Benen’s observation is supported by recent commentaries. The Reverend James Martin told CNN that Pope Leo XIV is merely “reminding us that Jesus says we have to welcome the stranger. But more recently, he's reminding us that Jesus said, ' Blessed are the peacemakers,' not blessed are the warmongers. And after the resurrection, his message to the disciples is, peace be with you. So you can't get away from the message of peace from Jesus, nor can you get away from the message of helping the poor. And you know, these are gospel topics. They're not political topics."
By a more scathing contrast, Clint Russell of the right-wing Liberty Lockdown podcast argued that Trump’s rhetoric makes him think “there’s a decent chance he’s the antichrist” while former George US House Representative and Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene said that “it’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit.”
Or as far-right Texas pastor Joel Webbon argued during a livestream titled “Is Donald Trump the Anti-Christ?” many like himself are starting to “genuinely believe Trump is currently demon possessed.”
Tucker Carlson, a far right pundit and frequent Trump critic, asked “is it possible what you’re watching is a very stealthy yet incredibly effective attack on what, from a Christian perspective, is the true faith: belief in Jesus? Is it possible that the president sees this in bigger terms? Sees this as the fulfillment of something? An elevation of some higher office beyond President of the United States?”
