Donald Trump has claimed that Pope Leo XIV supports Iran having nuclear weapons, directly contradicting what the pope has actually said. The Daily Beast reports that Trump made these comments during an interview with Hugh Hewitt on the Salem News Channel, just ahead of a planned meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the pope at the Vatican.
The controversy started when Hewitt brought up Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist who was sentenced to 20 years in prison under the city’s national security law. Hewitt said he wished Pope Leo would speak out about Lai’s case. Trump, instead of addressing that, went after the pope, calling him “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.”
