{"id":583898,"date":"2026-04-14T15:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/583898\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:56:10","slug":"jd-vance-defends-trump-amid-spat-with-pope-leo-stick-to-matters-of-morality-jd-vance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/583898\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance defends Trump amid spat with Pope Leo: \u2018Stick to matters of morality\u2019 | JD Vance"},"content":{"rendered":"

JD Vance has weighed in on Donald Trump\u2019s feud<\/a> with Pope Leo, effectively telling the pontiff to stay in his lane after the head of the Catholic church criticized the White House over the Iran war.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what\u2019s going on in the Catholic church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,\u201d the vice-president \u2013 a Catholic convert himself \u2013 said in an interview<\/a> on Fox News on Monday night.<\/p>\n

His comments represented the latest twist in the spat between Trump and the first US-born pope that began Saturday when Pope Leo XIV suggested during evening prayers at St Peter\u2019s Basilica in Vatican City that a \u201cdelusion of omnipotence<\/a>\u201d surrounded the Iran war.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! True strength is shown in serving life,\u201d Leo said in thinly veiled commentary on the direction of the Iran war, and the leaders of the US and Israel who control it.<\/p>\n

Trump reacted with anger, posting to his Truth Social platform a lengthy diatribe<\/a> accusing the pope of being \u201cweak on crime\u201d and \u201ccatering to the radical left\u201d, and followed up with a now-deleted AI meme depicting himself as a Jesus Christ-like healer, an act which drew outrage<\/a> from supporters and opponents alike.<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s entrance into the dispute, and loyal defense of his boss, came after Leo responded on Monday by declaring he did not fear<\/a> the Trump administration, and would continue to \u201cspeak strongly\u201d against war, and for peace.<\/p>\n

Asked what he made of the episode, which has angered many in Trump\u2019s evangelical base, Vance tried to brush aside the controversy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we\u2019re going to have disagreements on matters of public policy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can respect the pope. We certainly have a good relationship with the Vatican, but we\u2019re also going to disagree on substantive questions from time to time. I think that\u2019s a totally reasonable thing. It isn\u2019t particularly newsworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Host Bret Baier pressed Vance on Trump\u2019s comment that the pontiff\u2019s position was \u201churting\u201d the Catholic church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has the prerogative to set American foreign policy, he\u2019s got the prerogative to set American immigration policy. He has to look out for the interests of the United States of America, and that inevitably means that when the Vatican comments on issues of public policy, sometimes there\u2019s going to be agreement, of course, and sometimes there\u2019s going to be disagreement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what\u2019s going on in the Catholic church. But when they\u2019re in conflict, they\u2019re in conflict. I don\u2019t worry about it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The backlash to Trump\u2019s posting of the AI-generated image, however, clearly resonated at the White House, which took the post down after a furious response from some of the president\u2019s most fervently Christian supporters. One called the image \u201cdisgusting and unacceptable\u201d, and another accused Trump of \u201coutrageous blasphemy\u201d.<\/p>\n

At a White House event on Monday, Trump took credit for posting the image, and claimed he was portraying himself as a doctor and not a religious healer, despite his caricature wearing religious-style robes and a person at a fictional patient\u2019s hospital bed with their hands clasped together in prayer.<\/p>\n

Vance insisted Trump alone made the decision to remove the post, and not because of the criticism it received.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president was posting a joke, and of course he took it down because he recognized that a lot of people weren\u2019t understanding his humor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[He] likes to mix it up on social media. One of the good things about this president is that he\u2019s not filtered, he doesn\u2019t send everything through a communications professional. He actually reaches out directly to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JD Vance has weighed in on Donald Trump\u2019s feud with Pope Leo, effectively telling the pontiff to stay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-583898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}