Stefanik defends Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo: ‘We know his leadership style’

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) on Wednesday defended President Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV, after the twomen got into a public spat over the weekend about the U.S. operation in Iran.

“I don’t want to see the Pope as a politician. The president — we know his leadership style. He’s going to stand strong for the American people. The president is a political figure,” Stefanik, who is Catholic, said during a Wednesday appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

“Of course he’s going to engage in politics when he’s politically attacked. I don’t want to see the Pope get involved in domestic politics,” she added. 

On Saturday, the pope issued a strong message urging leaders to stay out of wars and avoid self-idolatry. 

Trump pushed back on the Vatican leader’s rhetoric and said Pope Leo was “terrible” for foreign policy and “weak” on crime.

“I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the president added in a Sunday Truth Social post. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela.”

Stefanik’s comments echo sentiments from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who said on Wednesday that he was “taken aback” by the pontiff’s remarks and Vice President Vance who urged the first American pope to stay out of politics. 

“A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the pope’s received some of that,” Johnson said at a press conference.

“I was taken a little bit aback, just honestly, frankly by something that he said several days back,” he added.

However, some Catholic Trump supporters expressed anger for the insults hurled at the pope. 

“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, said. 

“President Trump was treating him like a political rival, and he’s just not,” she added.

Christopher Hale, a Democratic operative and publisher of the Substack “Letters from Leo,” also said the pope is speaking out on issues that threaten a “loss of humanity” while noting that the president would likely “regret these remarks politically in the midterms.”

Pope Leo XIV did not respond directly to Trump’s criticism and corresponding backlash but said that, “We have different beliefs, we have different ways of worshipping, we have different ways of living, we can live together in peace,” on a papal plane in Africa on Wednesday according to CNN.  

“I think that to promote that kind of image is something which the world needs to hear today,” he added. 

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Wednesday pressed Trump to issue an apology to Leo.

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