Donald Trump‘s social media post attacking Pope Leo XIV as “weak” left late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel in disbelief during their respective April 13 episodes. Both men regularly bash Trump during their monologues, but the president’s tirade against the Pope left them puzzled to the point of near-speechlessness.
“According to one Italian religious historian, not even Hitler or Mussolini attacked the Pope so directly and publicly,” Colbert told his viewers before quipping: “It’s never great when someone says, ‘You should really be more discreet and respectful. You know, like Hitler.’”
Pope Leo has publicly opposed the war in Iran as well as Trump’s immigration policy, which prompted Trump’s meltdown. The president posted on Truth Social: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy … I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country. And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History.”
The post prompted Kimmel to ask: “What does the pope have to do with crime? He’s not Batman, he’s the pope. This is what happens when you sell Bibles instead of reading them… We have a fight between the president and the Pope. The world has become a real life episode of ‘South Park.’”
Trump courted even more backlash when he followed up his tirade by posting an AI-generated image of that many interpreted to depict Trump as Jesus Christ. The backlash was widespread and instant, with Trump later removing the post from his Truth Social account and claiming that he thought he was depicted as a doctor.
“So, Donald Trump wants us to believe that he thought this was a doctor,” Colbert fired back, calling it “quite the excuse” from the president and adding: “If I’m in a doctor’s office and that man walks in, I’m thinking I died.”
Trump’s excuse also caused disbelief from Jon Stewart, who asked during his April 13 episode “The Daily Show”: “Do you even care about lying to us anymore? Is this over? Has this relationship gone stale? Your lies used to have a real spark… And now the best you’ve got is, ‘Eh, no, I wasn’t Jesus. I’m a doctor!’ You need to go back and find your happy place and fast.”
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