Donald Trump is accustomed to criticism from coast to coast — Democrats, disaffected Republicans, late-night comedians, massive protests. Yet in his second presidency, Trump’s most influential American critic doesn’t live in the country but at the Vatican.
It's an unprecedented situation, with the first American pope directly assailing the American president over the war in Iran, where a fragile ceasefire took hold this week. The announcement came after Pope Leo XIV declared that Trump's belligerence was “truly unacceptable.”
Never before has the relationship between Washington and the Vatican revolved around two Americans — specifically, a 79-year-old politician from Queens and a 70-year-old pontiff from Chicago. They come from the same generation and share some common cultural roots yet bring jarringly distinct approaches to their positions of vast power. And the relationship comes with risks for both sides.
“They’re two white guy boomers but they could not be any more different in their life experiences, in their values, in the way they have chosen to live those values,” said theology professor Natalia Imperatori-Lee of Fordham University. “This is a very stark contrast, and I think an inflection point for American Christianity.”
Experts on the Catholic Church emphasized that Leo’s opposition to the war reflects established church teachings, not the reflexive politics of the moment.
“For the last five centuries, the church has been involved in a project of helping develop strong international norms,” including the Geneva Conventions in recent centuries, said Catholic University professor William Barbieri. “It is a very long-standing tradition rooted in Scripture and theology and philosophy.”
Yet the U.S. administration, which has close ties to conservative evangelical Protestant leaders, has claimed heavenly endorsement for Trump’s war on Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged Americans to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.” When Trump was asked whether he thought God approved of the war, he said, “I do, because God is good — because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of.”
The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of iconic Baptist evangelist Billy Graham, said of Trump that God “raised him up for such a time as this.” And Graham prayed for victory so Iranians can “be set free from these Islamic lunatics.”
Leo countered in his Palm Sunday message that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” He referenced an Old Testament passage from Isaiah, saying that “even though you make many prayers, I will not listen — your hands are full of blood.”
While it's not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes, it's exceedingly rare for the leader of the Catholic Church to directly criticize a U.S. leader, and Leo later named Trump directly and expressed optimism that the president would seek “an off-ramp” in Iran.
An even stronger condemnation came after Trump warned of mass strikes against Iranian power plants and infrastructure, writing on social media that “an entire civilization will die tonight.” Leo described that as a “threat against the entire people of Iran" and said it was "truly unacceptable.”
Imperatori-Lee said Leo’s direct criticism stands out from the church's more general critiques of political and social systems. For example, Pope Francis urged U.S. bishops to defend migrants without specifically mentioning Trump or his deportation agenda. Leo also previously called for humane treatment of migrants.
“Popes have critiqued unfettered capitalism before, very robustly. The popes have critiqued the Industrial Revolution, right? Things that the U.S. has been at the forefront of,” Imperatori-Lee said, “but it’s never been this specific and localized.”
She said Leo’s commentary resonates in the U.S. — with Catholics and non-Catholics — because he is a native English speaker.
“There’s no question about his inflection and meaning,” she said. "It removes any ambiguities.”
Trump welcomed Leo’s election last May as a “great honor” for the country, and he hasn't responded to the latest criticisms. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
“What Pope Leo and Donald Trump have in common is they both lived through the post-war polarization,” including the political upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, said Steven Millies, a professor at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, one of the pope’s alma maters.
He noted that Leo is a subscriber to The New York Times, plays the “Wordle” game, keeps up with U.S. sports and talks regularly with his brothers, including an avowed Trump supporter.
“In some ways he’s just like us,” Millies said, someone “who understands where our domestic political crisis came from,” unlike the Argentinian Francis, “who did not fully understand the peculiarities of the United States” even as he offered implicit criticism.
Barbieri said Leo’s American savvy still does not change an underappreciated reality of Catholicism and the papacy. “The Catholic Church doesn’t neatly fit into either right or left boxes as they’re understood in U.S. politics,” he said.
Leo spent much of his pre-papal ministry, including all his time as a bishop and cardinal, outside the U.S.
He was educated in Rome as a canon lawyer within the church. He was a bishop in poor, rural swaths of Peru. He led the Augustinian order and served as Francis’ prefect for recommending bishop appointees around the world.
Imperatori-Lee said that global reach gave him a first-hand perspective on how Washington's economic and military policies — including backing dictators in Latin America — have negatively affected less powerful nations and their citizens.
His varied experiences made then-Cardinal Robert Prevost uniquely suited to be elected pope despite the College of Cardinals’ traditional skepticism toward the U.S. and its superpower status. Millies argued that Trump and his advisers, even Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, may not appreciate those distinctions.
“This is an administration that seems to think only in terms of transactional politics — who’s for us and who’s against us,” he said.
Relations between Washington and the Vatican have become so strained that a report of an allegedly contentious meeting involving Pentagon and Catholic Church officials sent shockwaves through both cities.
According to the report in The Free Press, a member of Trump's administration warned the church in January not to stand in the way of U.S. military might.
The Vatican on Friday issued a statement rejecting the report's characterization of the meeting, saying it “does not correspond to the truth in any way.”
The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See also pushed back, writing on social media that “deliberate misrepresentation of these routine meetings sows unfounded division and misunderstanding.”
Millies, meanwhile, questioned whether anything the pope or U.S. bishops say can sway individual Catholics. Trump is likely to lose support among Catholics as he loses support across the broader electorate, Millies said, but that's not necessarily because members of Leo's flock are applying church doctrine.
“Partisan preferences always trump the religious commitments,” Millies said, describing a “disconnect” between church leaders and many parishioners who look to other sources, politicians included, when shaping their views of faith and politics.
“The icon of Catholicism in American politics now is JD Vance, and it’s more about winning an argument," he said. "It’s a very different emphasis, but it’s one that may suit the Trump administration very well.”
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Associated Press reporters Nicole Winfield in Rome and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Pope Leo XIV blesses faithful as he starts his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Standing behind a downtown bar, Evan Duke smiled when he thought about no longer paying federal income tax on the hundreds of dollars in tips he earns on a busy night pouring beers and mixing drinks.
But the 30-year-old said he cannot afford health insurance and worries about how higher costs for rent, food and fuel are affecting him and the patrons who slip cash into the jar at Pearl & Peril.
“It’s kind of messy right now,” Duke said.
Duke's dilemma is an economic microcosm of Donald Trump's second presidency. Although the Republican president has tried to put more money in middle-class pockets with tax cuts, the benefits are being eroded as prices keep rising, especially during the war with Iran. The latest numbers, released Tuesday, showed the rate of inflation continued to climb.
It's a financial tug-of-war shaping people’s lives as they consider the upcoming midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress during the final two years of Trump's tenure.
All of these economic issues have been center stage in the battleground state of North Carolina and its U.S. Senate race. Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee and former national party chairman, is championing Trump's tax overhaul. Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate and a former governor, is panning Trump's management of the U.S. economy.
Duke, a registered independent, isn't sure who he'll support. Like a lot of Americans who vote with their wallets, he expects to decide based on “how things are going at the time.”
“I’ve got to do more research,” he said.
The dividing line is what Trump called “the one big beautiful bill,” his signature legislation that cuts taxes but also reduces funding for public programs like Medicaid.
When Whatley recently appeared with Vice President JD Vance in Rocky Mount, he said the midterm elections were about “protecting no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security.”
Some of the claims were an exaggeration. For example, the legislation does not entirely eliminate federal levies on overtime. But his remarks showed how much Republicans want voters to see the legislation as a “working families tax cut,” as they've taken to calling it.
“I don’t know about you, but I sure trust you to spend your money better than a federal government in D.C.,” Whatley said.
Tracy Brill, 62, a Trump supporter in the audience, said she was willing to cope with rising costs due to the war.
“The course he’s taken is spot on,” she said, adding that “I believe the other presidents didn’t do what they should have done.”
Cooper and Democrats have focused their pitch around what they call the “affordability crisis.” They emphasize health care costs and Republicans’ refusal to extend expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums. And they highlight housing and utility prices, hikes on consumer goods affected by Trump’s tariffs, and ripple effects from the president’s Iran war on everything from fuel and farmer’s fertilizer costs to groceries.
“It seems like everything that Washington is doing is driving up costs across the board,” Cooper said in Greensboro.
It's a convenient turnabout for Democrats. President Joe Biden and his party had previously faced blame for inflation, which Trump capitalized on in his comeback campaign, but now Republicans shoulder the brunt of voters' angst.
Republicans have a larger margin in the U.S. Senate than in the U.S. House, but Democrats believe economic dissatisfaction gives them a shot at full control of Congress. North Carolina is a top target along with Maine, Ohio and Alaska. There are even hopes that Iowa and Texas could be competitive, too.
Democrats have long struggled to win Senate seats in North Carolina, but they believe they have a better shot this year because Republican incumbent Thom Tillis is retiring.
Cooper also enjoys a centrist reputation and has won six statewide elections already, including two gubernatorial contests in cycles when Trump carried North Carolina. Whatley has deep ties in Republican circles as a former lobbyist and longtime party leader, but he’s not yet well known to voters.
Phyllis Aycock, a 79-year-old antiques store owner in Nash County, is leaning toward Cooper even after voting for Trump three times. She said she regrets her most recent vote for the president.
“It’s the whole trickle-down effect,” Aycock said, explaining that economic uncertainty and inflation, including premium hikes on health insurance that supplements her Medicare and cancels out Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and any tax breaks she's received during Trump’s tenure.
She said she wonders whether Trump “even thinks about the cause-and-effect of what he does or what he doesn’t do, how it directly affects us, and when I say ‘us,’ I definitely mean the middle-class, lower-class working people, the blue collar, the ones that pay the taxes.”
“It just seems like there’s no relief for us, like it’s all for the guy who has everything already,” she said.
Aycock and her son, Michael, said they’ve seen foot traffic and purchases at their store decrease, which sits a few doors down from the law office where Cooper and his father once practiced. The elder Aycock said she doesn’t know Cooper personally but has voted for him before and would consider doing so again.
As for Whatley, she’s heard only fealty to Trump. She tightened her lips, then said, “I’m worried he’s just a yes man. We’ve got enough of those.”
During Cooper's second term as governor, he convinced the Republican-run Legislature to expand Medicaid — a government insurance program for low-income or disabled adults and children in poor or working-class households — under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Cooper talks about that program alongside his criticism of Republicans' refusal to extend pandemic-era subsidies for private insurance plans.
The issue has drawn supporters like Emily Miller, a 43-year-old from Greensboro who volunteers on various voter turnout efforts that benefit Democrats.
“Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act absolutely have saved my life,” said Miller, who has physical health problems. As a Kentucky and then North Carolina resident, she leaned on the 2010 law’s benefits between her time as a public schoolteacher and her return to the workforce as an education consultant.
When she didn't have a full-time job, Miller said, she required expensive medical care, including some inpatient mental health services. She said her part-time jobs at the time would not have covered private insurance costs, much less direct market rates for her treatment.
“I’m very grateful I’ve gotten back to a place where I’ve got a career again,” Miller said, with employer-based coverage. “I’m an example of exactly what this system is supposed to do. It was a bridge. And so many people, people who are working, are struggling like that.”
Miller is also skeptical that people will benefit from Trump's legislation to cut taxes on overtime pay.
“I had an overtime-eligible job,” she said, “and I had bosses who would send us home before we got those extra hours.”
Yet for Cooper to win, he also needs to energize apathetic voters, including some Democrats.
James Outlaw, a 60-year-old in rural Bertie County, said he'll probably vote in November but doesn't see things improving regardless of the outcome.
“It won’t get no better,” he said, as he filled in his lotto numbers at a local convenience store. “Never does.”
Back behind the bar in downtown Raleigh, Duke looked forward to the coming weekend, which would bring thirstier crowds and, hopefully, more tips.
He said he appreciates getting “a few thousand dollars” from the tax breaks, and he said he’d “at least look at” Whatley, the Republican candidate. But he also thinks of the back-of-the-house workers who don't earn tips and won't benefit from it.
As for his lack of health insurance, Duke said that's not enough to guarantee his vote for Cooper, even as he remembered the Democratic nominee as “a pretty good governor.”
“I’m healthy, and I can pay rent,” he said.
That may be the outlook Republicans need as they urge voters to be patient. While speaking in Rocky Mount, Vance assured the audience that Trump wouldn’t let the economy languish.
“He constantly is pressing on the gas,” Vance said. “He wants us to do more.”
President Donald Trump speaks at an event about maternal healthcare, Monday, May 11, 2026, in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
FILE - North Carolina Republican candidate for Senate Michael Whatley addresses a crowd, March 13, 2026, in Rocky Mount, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward, File)
Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper speaks during a March 9, 2026, campaign stop in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)
Michael Aycock, 56, left, and his mother Phyllis Aycock, 79, discuss economic conditions as they stand on the showroom floor of their antiques shop in downtown Nashville, N.C., March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)
Evan Duke, a 30-year-old bartender who lives in Raleigh, N.C., works at the Pearl & Peril, March 10, 2026, in the city's Glenwood South bar district. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)
