Pope Leo pushes back after Trump calls him ‘terrible’

[0:00] Now to that extraordinary new front that the President of the United States is now taking his fight to. [0:06] Taking on the Pope. And Pope Leo is responding. [0:09] A statement that no Pope has ever made before, quite frankly, ever has had to make before. [0:14] The Pope saying this morning that he has, quote, [0:17] no fear of the Trump administration after President Trump went after him [0:21] as if Pope Leo were just any other politician. [0:24] Saying the pontiff was, quote, weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. [0:30] Here is Pope Leo's message. [0:33] The message of the church, my message, the message of the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers. [0:40] I do not look at my role as being a political politician. [0:44] I don't want to get into a debate with him. [0:47] I don't think that the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. [0:53] And I will continue to speak out loud against war. [0:59] CNN's Elena Treen is at the White House for us to start us off. [1:02] This is quite a way to start a Monday, Elena. [1:04] Absolutely. [1:06] I mean, a remarkable statement and comments you're hearing from Pope Leo XIV this morning. [1:12] And they come, Kate, in response to the president issuing sharp criticisms against the first American pope. [1:18] He had called the bishop of Rome, quote, [1:20] weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy, [1:23] while also claiming that Pope Leo would not have been selected if it was not for the president himself. [1:30] Now, we later saw Trump double down on comments in person while speaking with reporters last night before posting an AI-generated image of himself that essentially portrayed him looking as if he were Christ the healer. [1:45] But I do want you to take a listen to what we heard the president say last night. [1:50] He's a very liberal person. [1:54] And he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime. [1:57] He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. [2:06] So I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. [2:09] I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. [2:13] Look, just to give you a little context here, we had heard the pope weigh in. [2:17] I think initially he was, you know, trying to refrain from criticizing the president or the Trump administration directly. [2:23] But we have seen him become far more vocal when criticizing the U.S. war with Iran. [2:29] Last week, he condemned the president's rhetoric specifically after we saw President Trump issue that threat that a whole civilization would die tonight. [2:38] Now, I want to give you a little context as well. [2:40] It's very interesting. [2:41] And what I'm going to be watching for is what the 53 million Americans who are Catholic, who identify as Catholic. [2:47] I would also say, you know, put that in another number that's known as 20 percent of the voting public, remains to be seen what their reaction to this will be. [2:55] Same with, I would note, among those, you know, 20, excuse me, 53 million Americans, that includes the First Lady Melania Trump, the Vice President J.D. Vance, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, all of them as well identifying as Catholic. [3:09] So just an remarkable, I think, war of words that we're seeing between the president and now having Pope Leo, the 14th, respond this morning. [3:15] After the president criticized the Pope's anti-war stance and said he did not like him, the Pope this morning said he's not afraid of the Trump administration. [3:24] And then reportedly, when asked about a true social post, he pushed back saying, quote, it's ironic, the name of the site itself, say no more. [3:34] Let's get to CNN, Vatican correspondent, Christopher Lamb, who is traveling with the Pope. [3:38] You were in Algeria. [3:39] You were on that plane where those extraordinary comments were made. [3:44] What did you hear? [3:44] Well, John, there was extraordinary and very strong comments from Pope Leo. [3:53] Of course, I was among a group of journalists who traveled with the Pope to Algeria. [3:59] He came to the back of the plane as his custom. [4:03] And he was asked about Trump's truth social post, that extraordinary broadside against Pope Leo. [4:11] And he had a really a consistent message that was, I'm not a politician. [4:17] I don't want to get into a back and forth, but I'm going to continue to speak out. [4:22] And he said, blessed are the peacemakers. [4:25] Here is some more of what Leo had to say on board the plane. [4:29] I have no fear that the Trump administration, they're speaking out loud about the message of the gospel. [4:38] And that's what I believe. [4:40] I, who come to know, the church has gone through, we're not politicians, we're not politicians, we're not politicians, we're not politicians, foreign policies, and politicians with the same perspective that we might understand. [4:51] But I do believe that the message of the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers, is the message of the board needs to be heard. [4:57] Thank you. Thank you very much for clarifying that. [5:03] Well, John, you know, Pope Leo has, in recent days, been much more outspoken about the war in the Middle East and in Iran in particular. [5:13] And as Pope, he is something of a counterweight, diplomatically, spiritually, to President Trump. [5:20] Of course, Leo is the first American pope, and he was addressing some of us reporters today in English. [5:26] His words are clearly cutting through to the president, who launched that extraordinary attack. [5:32] It does seem, though, that Pope Leo is unperturbed, unafraid, and continuing to speak out for peace as he has, as he arrived here in Algiers for the first part of a four-country tour of Africa. [5:46] John. [5:47] So, Christopher, with Pope Francis before him, Pope Leo's predecessor, occasionally you would have the president and the pope speaking past each other with vague, veiled references. [5:57] I don't know if it's because English is the first language for Pope Leo. [6:01] This seemed to be a much more of a direct response to the president's words than I feel like I have heard before here. [6:10] Is there a reason for that? [6:12] And what more do we expect from Pope Leo on this trip to Africa? [6:16] Well, I think it is partly to do with the fact that Leo is an American and he has English as a mother tongue. [6:28] And, you know, I spoke to Leo, asked him a question just before Easter about a message he had for President Trump. [6:33] And Leo said to me he hopes President Trump finds an off-ramp to end the war in Iran. [6:40] You know, I think what we're seeing here is a clash between a pope who wants to communicate this message of peace, of bridge building, of trying to build relations between faiths, between Christians and Muslims. [6:54] He's here in Algeria in a predominantly Muslim country. [6:58] And so I think the stark contrast between the first American pope and the US president at this time couldn't be stronger. [7:08] And, of course, it was viewed for decades that it was impossible for the Cardinals to elect an American pope. [7:16] Why did they change that? [7:18] Well, partly because of the election of President Trump. [7:22] And that is part, I think, of some of the conflict and back and forth that we've seen today. [7:28] Joining me now to discuss Christopher Hale, the publisher of the Letters from Leo substat. [7:33] Thanks so much for being here as the story, honestly, is continuing from overnight. [7:39] Can we talk about what you just heard from Pope Leo just there where he said some things I expect to hear? [7:45] Blessed are the peacemakers. [7:46] But I also heard him say that he doesn't believe he is political. [7:50] Is that fair given how he's been talking? [7:53] Yeah, I think that what he always has been very clear on is if you look in the gospel, [7:58] Jesus tells us that the God's domain stretches everywhere. [8:02] And so he's only touching politics where it touches core gospel values. [8:07] And the core gospel value that touches here is peace. [8:10] Jesus Christ, the risen from the dead, his first words to his apostles are peace be with you. [8:16] Pope Leo XIV, those were his first words to the faithful. [8:20] It's the core of his identity is to be a messenger of peace. [8:24] He sees this war as unjust, unprovoked, immoral, illegal. [8:29] So this is why he's speaking out. [8:31] He's speaking in a language that Donald Trump clearly doesn't understand. [8:34] But any Catholic, any Christian understands why this pope is speaking so clearly on this issue. [8:40] Now you're saying any Christian, but there is a Christian right now who is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. [8:46] And here is how he has been talking about the war and strikes against Iran in the last couple of weeks. [8:53] I want you to respond on the other side of this. [8:56] Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. [9:03] Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind. [9:08] Give them wisdom in every decision. [9:11] Endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. [9:18] May Almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. [9:21] Can you talk a little bit about this? [9:27] I know Hegseth is a follower of Doug Wilson, who's an evangelical pastor who believes, among other things, about repealing women's right to vote. [9:35] But can you talk about this, how he's been approaching it in language and tone? [9:40] I think that the gospel or Bible ends in the Old Testament. [9:46] He never seems to invoke the New Testament, the message of peace, the message of Jesus. [9:51] And I think that what's remarkable is you talk about Doug Wilson. [9:54] You're right. [9:55] There is an evangelical versus Catholic divide on how to approach a lot of these issues. [10:01] Doug Wilson, who was invited to speak at the Pentagon on February 14th, has a very low view of Catholicism. [10:07] He said just last month that he would want to ban public expressions of the Catholic faith in American life. [10:15] And so it's remarkable to me that this man is leading our troops, that he has these advisers close to him that are so clearly anti-Catholic. [10:25] We know on Good Friday, for the first time in at least 40 years, there was no Catholic service for Pentagon workers on Good Friday. [10:33] So it seems that the Catholic Church once again is being marginalized in this administration. [10:38] And I would argue being attacked in this administration. [10:41] Now, I know you're among the progressive voices in this church. [10:45] And it's an interesting moment when I look at those Cardinals who were on 60 Minutes last night, talking about what they see as the role of the church. [10:55] And here is where they were commenting even on the social media feeds, right, coming out of the Pentagon, describing it as a kind of gamification of war. [11:04] We're dehumanizing the victims of war by turning the suffering of people and the killing of children and our own soldiers into entertainment. [11:18] You called it sickening. [11:19] It is sickening to splice together movie cuts with actual bombing and targeting of people for the purposes of entertainment is sickening. [11:29] This is not who we are. [11:30] We're better than this. [11:31] How is the first American pope changing the American Catholic Church? [11:37] I think it's remarkable. [11:41] He's saying similar things to Francis, but Francis was oftentimes marginalized by more conservative voices in the episcopacy of the bishops in the United States with basically the idea was he's from Argentina. [11:53] He doesn't understand us. [11:55] He's from a different world. [11:57] He doesn't understand the American people. [11:59] You cannot make the same argument for a man born in suburban Chicago. [12:03] And so I think what's happened is that there's been a shift among the episcopacy in the United States under Leo XIV. [12:10] They realized that Leo's not going anywhere. [12:13] He understands the United States. [12:16] He has his priorities, and he expects the bishops to carry that message forward. [12:21] One final note. [12:22] It takes a long time to get your people in place. [12:25] Francis was pope for 12 years. [12:27] During the first Trump administration, we didn't hear as much pushback because his people were not yet in place. [12:33] These are Francis bishops. [12:35] These are Leo bishops who now are in the highest echelons of the church in the United States, and that's changing everything. [12:41] What about these? [12:43] That really helps. [12:45] I'm proud to have themark Polizei simple, just to have a question. [12:46] The Lilly watch that they watch and the headlights work or the mass echelon of the我就. [12:51] The same thing as they say, they show Fermi's Mitglied to the local districts just for years to be led by Leah. [12:53] This is the