Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Robert Jones: Thanks. Glad to be here.
Jones: Well, I guess I’ll start with the last one. “I was doing what I was elected for”—I mean, Trump, of course, thinks that now that he’s been elected, he can be constrained by nothing but his own whim. And so I think that’s really what he’s reacting to here.
Sargent: Exactly. And it doesn’t matter whether they speak for a 2,000-year-old religion or not. So Trump also posted this deranged image that portrayed him as a divine figure in a white robe, healing a sick man by placing his hand on the man’s forehead. This got MAGA figures angry.
There was much more like that. Robert, can you just explain at the core why this image is seen as blasphemous?
So this is also this depiction of supernatural divine healing power that he’s claiming for himself. One other thing I would say is that this is not the first time Trump has done this. You know, it was actually just after Easter last year that Trump actually posted an image of himself as the Pope, dressed up in papal vestments. So, you know, this is not the first time he’s posted things like this, assuming either the chair of the Pope himself or the image of Jesus.
Reporter (voiceover): Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?
Sargent: So, Robert, apparently Trump thinks doctors have celestial light pouring forth from their palms and can heal people by touching them. As the picture showed, what did you make of his excuse?
But there’s angels in the air behind him. And as we said, these kind of glowing palms. So it’s very clearly—he’s just trying to clearly just obfuscate and kind of trying to back away from it. And again, if he thought this was just an image of him as a doctor and did this innocently, why remove it? Just leave it up if he really believed in it.
Jones: I think that’s a really good insight. I mean things that are sacred, things that are holy, things that deserve kind of awe and respect and deference, right? These are all religious emotions that actual people who have some sense of piety take very seriously. And so I think that’s why we’re seeing some of this kind of reaction, even from some of his strongest supporters, is because they also have a religious sensibility.
Sargent: So Robert, I wonder if part of what we’re seeing here is that in Trump’s genuine understanding of the situation, evangelicals really do matter a lot more within his base than Catholics do. What does the data show on that? It confirms that, right? And how would these different groups perceive this controversy generally?
So he’s always had white non-Hispanic Catholics with him, but they vote about six in 10 for him, not 85 percent for him. And the real difference though is that inside the Catholic Church, Hispanic Catholics have actually voted Democratic, typically. So in the last election, it was only about 43 percent of Hispanic Catholics that supported him, compared to 60 percent of white Catholics. So there’s this kind of racial tension inside the Catholic Church, and it’s just not a monolith in the way that it is among white evangelicals.
Sargent: Yeah, I want to ask you about that because it seems like there may be a fundamental difference between how devout evangelicals and how devout Catholics perceive Trump. Evangelicals are much more prone to understand Trump as kind of a flawed vessel sent to them by God to carry out his and their plans in the world. Whereas Catholics, I think, aren’t really at that place. Is that distinction correct?
But his favorability among even white Catholics who voted for him is only about 53 percent. So it’s just barely in majority territory today.
Jones: Yeah, with Catholics overall, it’s actually a little bit underwater—just below majority. But that’s because his favorability rating among Hispanic Catholics is 25 percent, right? It’s half as high as among white Catholics.
Reporter (voiceover): You don’t apologize?
Sargent: So, Robert, what do you make of that? I think all this makes it a lot worse, doesn’t it?
So I think this is really part of his MO. Don’t ask forgiveness even of God. Certainly don’t apologize to any human being. It is just kind of stand by it. But I think you’re right that in this case, it again is so far over the line. I think he’s going to—it may actually do some damage.
Jones: Yeah, that’s right.
If you think about it, the Pope is saying some fairly unsurprising things. He’s saying that violent conquest and domination are contrary to the spirit of the Lord, that we have to take care to welcome the stranger. These are things that he probably shouldn’t be surprised by coming from the Pope. But Trump is only capable of understanding this as an affront to him personally. And I really wonder whether that makes things worse in the minds of at least some religious people. Can you talk about that?
And one of the key ones is that there’s no such thing as a preemptive just war. In other words, preemption is never a moral reason to go to war. War always has to be a last resort, after all modes of diplomacy have failed, and there has to be an imminent threat before—and none of those things has—you could imagine a different world in which Trump knew this tradition and tried to frame a justification for going to war with Iran that might meet some of those criteria, even if it were kind of spun very heavily. But he just hasn’t even attempted to do this. I think he just doesn’t really realize the kind of bandsaw he’s run into here with Catholic moral theology.
Jones: I think it’s really telling in that clip you’ve played about Trump that he’s simply appealing to ends. So if you kind of think about ends and means in your kind of philosophy classes. he’s just appealing to an end and saying, well, we should want this kind of end with Iran. And if we want that kind of end, then we could just go to war. But that’s not the way moral philosophy works, right?
Sargent: Right. And I think it’s probably worth bringing in here Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who’s been holding these monthly sermons at the Pentagon, which is itself probably a violation of the church-state separation. Pete Hegseth is a Christian Reconstructionist, and that’s really a radical theology. And Pete Hegseth has also, not coincidentally, been essentially saying that maximal force and violence and brutality is a good thing. He’s been kind of saturated with bloodlust and sadism as he’s talked about how our precision weaponry will kill people on a mass scale. And he even recited one prayer which essentially said, in some form or other, that the Iranian enemy doesn’t hear God when he cries to God.
Jones: Well, Pope Leo rebutted it directly by saying that God does not hear the prayers of those who pray for violence. So he came straight at those in response to that. And so I think we do have these diametrically opposed things where one is saying we are declaring ourselves the instruments of God’s violent justice in the world and God is on our side.
Sargent: So do you think that a lot of religious Catholics out there will understand this kind of dimension of the debate, and will they see Trump essentially—not just blaspheming himself, but also being so diametrically opposed to Catholic doctrine on principle—will that trouble them?
Because the most powerful thing is what happens at the local community level, right? Not what happens on high. But I think Pope Leo’s leadership here is creating more space for bishops and parish priests to have a different kind of conversation—one where maybe they just have a whole Bible study or a whole kind of theology study on the Catholic just war tradition. And if you do that, I mean, you’re very quickly going to discover there’s no way to shoehorn this Iran War into anything to be approved by that tradition.
Jones: Well, I think so. I mean, I think that that’s the church’s job, right, is to kind of provide moral teaching, and that’s part of what the hierarchy does. It organizes the worldwide church and can influence certain kinds of conversations and bring them to the fore. I think by spotlighting this as something very important, addressing it on Easter—these are very strong signals, I think, to local parishes that this is actually something important to talk about.
Jones: Yeah, I don’t think Pope Leo would think about it directly like that, but I think that may be the end result. I did take a little bit of a look, and what’s important to remember is that Trump’s super support among evangelicals largely occurs among states that are very safe Republican states, right? So even if he dropped 10 points among evangelicals, he’d probably still be okay.
Sargent: Just to wrap this up, can you explain how that plays out for JD Vance in 2028? He’s, after all, someone who converted to Catholicism and he’s making that a major part of his political identity.
Sargent: Why? Because he’ll have to explain himself in more detail.
Sargent: Well, best of luck to JD Vance sorting that one out. Folks, if you enjoyed this, make sure to check out Robert Jones’s new book, which will be out soon. It’s called Backslide. It’s about Christian nationalism and democracy. Robert, awesome to talk to you. Thank you so much.
Jones: Thanks so much.
Hence then, the article about transcript trump rages as pope s harsh new rebuke lands surprise blow was published today ( ) and is available on The New Republic ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Transcript: Trump Rages as Pope’s Harsh New Rebuke Lands Surprise Blow )
Also on site :
- Invitation to telephone conference concerning Duni AB (publ) interim report 1 January - 31 March 2026
- Wind Advisory issued April 17 at 2:56AM PDT until April 17 at 8:00AM PDT by NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard CA
- Inside The ‘Landmark’ Exhibition Showcasing The Story of Black British Music at London’s Brand-New V&A