How should we think about Donald Trump's attack on the pope? What are we to say about the president depicting himself as Jesus?
Words like "unhinged" and "rambling" come to mind, for sure. But one of the more astounding features of the president's extended rant against Pope Leo XIV was how much Trump credits himself for Leo's papacy. "If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican," he wrote on social media. Trump also insulted the pope as "weak on crime" and "terrible."
Which brings up another question: Does Trump even know what the pope does? "Weak on crime," as my colleague Marianne Szegedy-Maszak noted in a Slack channel, gives the impression that the president of the United States thinks of Leo as some kind of big city mayor. Like, Tim Walz of the Vatican. Whatever the case, Leo is unbothered. As he told reporters this morning, "I have no fear of the Trump administration."
Now that's the kind of inner peace I want in my life.
—Inae Oh
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