Donald Trump has suggested he played a role in Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV’s election as the new pontiff.
That’s despite the U.S. president having nothing to do with the traditional Conclave process that selects a new pope.
In a Truth Social rant against ABC News Sunday night, Trump sought credit for the election of Pope Leo, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost.
“So funny to watch old timer Martha Raditz on ABC Fake News (the Slopadopolus show!) this morning, blurt out that, effectively, Pope Leo’s selection had nothing to do with Donald Trump,” he wrote on Truth Social. “It came out of nowhere, but it was on her Trump Deranged Mind.”
Trump added that he “did WIN the Catholic Vote, by a lot” and called on Disney CEO Bob Iger to do something about the “losers and haters he’s got on his low-rated shows”.
The president’s comments came hours before the new Pope gave his first press conference Monday morning, calling for an end to “loud, forceful communication”. In an address to media representatives in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, the new pontiff issued a call for unity after he was met with lengthy applause from thousands of journalists.
Leo called on the world to “disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred”.
“Let us free it from aggression,” he continued. “We do not need loud forceful communication, but rather communication that is capable of listening and gathering the voices of the weak who have no voice.
“Let us disarm words. Let us disarm words and we will help the world disarm. Disarming communication will allow us to share events of the world and to act in a manner consistent with our human dignity.”
Leo, who has previously been critical of the anti-immigration narrative pushed by the MAGA right, was elected as the first Pope from North America during a 24-hour Conclave last week. His appointment has been met with backlash from MAGA loyalists, with Laura Loomer taking shots at the ‘anti-Trump Marxist’.
In the run-up to his election on Thursday as the 267th pope, the then-cardinal Prevost shared an article from a Catholic publication in February with the headline: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Days earlier, Vance had cited a Christian tenet about prioritizing care for those around as justification for the Trump administration’s anti-immigration stance.
Before Trump’s first election in 2016, Leo also posted to X a Washington Post op-ed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, with the headline, “Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.”
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