President Trump’s dispute with Pope Leo XIV has inflamed Republican tensions, with conservative media figures quarreling over the pontiff’s leadership of the Roman Catholic Church and some of the party’s vulnerable midterm candidates rebuking the president.
Days after Mr. Trump first lashed out at the pope, who has been one of the most prominent critics of the war in Iran, the showdown continued to consume conservative media. On Thursday, the Fox News host Sean Hannity said on his program that Leo was “seemingly more interested in spreading left-wing politics than the actual teachings of Jesus Christ,” and was “twisting religion to specifically attack only President Trump.”
Earlier, on his podcast last week, Mr. Hannity asked rhetorically whether Leo had “even read the Bible,” drawing the attention of Tucker Carlson, a vocal conservative critic of the war.
“It does take a kind of cable news mentality to say of the pope: Hey, you ever read the Bible?” Mr. Carlson, a former Fox News host, said in an episode of his podcast released Thursday, adding that the pope’s criticism of the conflict in the Middle East was “pretty conventional.”
Mr. Trump, who described Leo as “terrible for foreign policy” and “weak on crime” in an extraordinary Truth Social post last Sunday, has also excoriated Mr. Carlson over his comments about the war. On Friday morning, Mr. Trump renewed his attacks on Mr. Carlson and other critics, suggesting on social media that he should rank conservative commentators on a “list of good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”
Intraparty divisions have also surfaced in the midterm elections, as some vulnerable G.O.P. candidates have objected to Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about the pope.
The president’s comments further complicate matters for Republicans, who were already fielding Democratic attacks over a sharp rise in fuel costs driven by an unpopular war. Republicans have been hoping to build on recent electoral success with Catholic voters, and the pope is widely popular among Catholics, according to polling.
“Politically it was very damaging,” former Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who is Catholic and supports the war, said of Mr. Trump’s comments about the pope. “He gave the impression to too many people that he doesn’t understand what Catholics are all about.”
Mr. Trump said Thursday that he was “not fighting” with Leo, a native of the Chicago area whose rise in the Vatican was initially cheered by the president. But Mr. Trump continued to chide the pope, telling reporters that he had “a right to disagree” with Leo.
“This is the real world,” Mr. Trump said, pointing to the thousands of protesters killed by Iran’s government before the war began and the threat he said the country posed to the United States and the Middle East. “It’s a nasty world.”
Leo said Monday that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration and that he planned to continue to speak out against the war.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, and Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, have firmly backed Mr. Trump as he taken on the leader of the Catholic Church.
A White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, said in a statement that “President Trump is the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party” and remained focused on lowering prices and keeping Americans safe.
But some Republicans, including severalCatholics who are facing challenging paths to re-election, have said the president’s comments about the pope were inappropriate.
Representative David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican who is running for governor, said in a statement that he was “disappointed in the president’s discourse.” Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, said in a statement that the president’s comments were “offensive to millions of Catholics.”
Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican whose district went narrowly to former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, took particular issue with Mr. Trump’s claim that if he “wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
“To suggest that a Pope somehow owes his place to a politician is absurd,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is Catholic and a Republican critic of Mr. Trump, said he thought the president’s criticism of the pope would stick with voters.
“American Catholics, even when they don’t agree with everything the pope says, still feel a sense of pride in this pope and a loyalty to this pope both as Catholics and Americans,” Mr. Christie said, adding that Mr. Trump had done “real damage to his standing with Catholic voters.”
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican majority leader, who is working to ensure his party maintains control of the chamber after the midterms, weighed in after Mr. Vance said the pope should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
“Isn’t that his job?” Mr. Thune said of the pope when asked by a reporter on Wednesday about Mr. Vance’s position. Mr. Thune urged Mr. Vance to focus on the “pocketbook issues that most Americans care about, and let the church be the church.”
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