The Daily Blast: Trump Erupts in Rage as Pope’s Harsh New Rebuke Lands Surprise Blow

The DSR Network

Chris Cotnoir

Government

4.5 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump is furious at Pope Leo. After the Pope sharply criticized the war on Iran, Trump exploded in a wild Truth Social rant, slamming the Pope as “WEAK on crime” and clueless about the Iranian nuclear threat. Trump then posted an image of himself as Jesus, which he took down after MAGA figures lashed out at him. Trump then angrily insisted he had no idea that image was religious, and seethed some more over the Pope’s criticism. In today’s episode, Robert Jones, the president of the Public Religion Research Institute, makes a fascinating point: The Pope’s criticism of his war appears calibrated in a way that could stir concern about his war in local churches at a grassroots level. That’s a hidden problem for Trump, says Jones, author of several books about religion and the American right. He explains why Trump’s spin will make this worse among religious voters, why all this will resonate more deeply with Catholics than with Trump’s Evangelical base, and why Catholics are a point of real vulnerability for him. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.4	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:32.2	When Donald Trump viciously attacked the Pope and then posted a picture depicting himself as a divine figure, it provoked a massive backlash from many and his own base.
0:38.0	That was bad enough, but then Trump offered some rambling spin on it all that was so preposterous in its dishonesty, so insulting, that it quickly made things worse.
0:49.6	We think this mess hints at deeper truths about how Trump approaches religious voters, particularly the right-wing
0:55.5	evangelicals who are critical to his support. It also helps explain why the Trump Coalition and the
1:01.5	Trump Project are so fragile right now. So we invited on Robert Jones, president of the Public
1:07.5	Religion Research Institute, an author of several books about religion and
1:11.1	the American right, to make sense of all this for us. Robert, good to have you on. Thanks. Glad
1:17.4	to be here. So Trump is angry because Pope Leo has repeatedly criticized the Iran war, and
1:23.4	especially Trump's threat to obliterate Iranian civilization. In response, Trump unleashed this crazed rant
1:30.9	describing the Pope as, quote, weak on crime, adding this, quote, I don't want a Pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a
1:38.8	nuclear weapon. Trump also said, I don't want a Pope who criticizes the president of the United States because I'm doing what I was elected for.
1:47.5	Robert, I just wanted to get your general thoughts on that first.
1:50.8	Well, I guess I'll start with the last one. I was doing what I was elected for. I mean, Trump, of course, thinks that now that he's been elected, he, you know, can be constrained by nothing but his own whim.
2:01.7	And so I think that's really what he's reacting to here.
2:04.2	But, you know, in this case, he's got, you know, the leader of a worldwide church who is also
2:10.1	operating out of a, you know, 2,000-year-old theological tradition.
2:15.9	So Leo's not firing from the hip here. You know,
2:19.5	he really is digging pretty deep. And this criticism, again, is not just about the war. It really is
2:26.1	weighing these decisions about state violence against Catholic moral teaching. Trump thinks that
2:33.6	there should be no criticism of him whatsoever.
	...

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