President Trump's attacks on the first American pope could spell trouble for his party in the midterm elections. The president's public shots at Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war have drawn rare, broad condemnation from Catholic bishops, activists, and lay leaders, who call his comments "disrespectful" and "immature." Strategists in both parties say the clash risks alienating white Catholic voters in Rust Belt states and key Latino Catholic communities in Arizona and South Texas—constituencies Republicans need to keep control of Congress, the New York Times reports.
"You really don't want to do some unforced errors like this," said Joshua Mercer, co-founder of Catholic Vote, which helped turn out Catholic support for Trump in 2024. Leo has criticized Trump's decision to go to war with Iran, framing it as a moral and humanitarian issue. Trump has hit back repeatedly, refusing to apologize and saying of the pope, "He's wrong." On Sunday, Trump accused Leo of being "terrible on foreign policy" and "weak on crime." On Wednesday, the president said Leo "shouldn't be talking about war, because he has no idea what's going on," the Times of London reports.
"It doesn't make sense politically for Trump to be attacking the pope, especially when the Catholic vote was the difference between 2020 and 2024, so I don't understand why he would, in my opinion, gratuitously attack the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics," Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with the Catholic Association, tells the Hill. "President Trump was treating him like a political rival, and he's just not." John Yep, president of the conservative Catholics for Catholics organization, tells the New York Times that he is "saddened" by Trump's rhetoric. "We really look for ... which candidates are the best to represent our Catholic values, so it's incumbent upon the president to really realize that this needs to be addressed," he says.
Republican officials are mostly dodging the controversy. Vice President JD Vance suggested the Vatican should "stick to matters of morality," while other Catholic figures in the administration have stayed quiet. Some hardline Trump allies, including Steve Bannon, insist the confrontation is good politics, arguing that blasting a "globalist" Vatican will fire up the MAGA base and that conservative Catholics will side with Trump on issues like immigration. But polls suggest Leo is significantly more popular than Trump, and critics warn that the president's target is "our American pope"—a figure many Catholic voters are proud of, and one they may remember in the voting booth.
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