{"id":12940,"date":"2026-05-12T11:25:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=12940"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:25:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:25:45","slug":"trump-knows-biblical-view-of-govt-better-than-pope-leo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=12940","title":{"rendered":"Trump knows biblical view of gov\u2019t better than Pope Leo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Anugrah Kumar,\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pastor Robert Jeffress \u00a0of First Baptist Dallas\u00a0(pictured) on Saturday said President Donald Trump has a better grasp of what the Bible teaches about government than Pope Leo XIV, specifically on the question of military action against Iran, entering a public dispute that has already seen Trump call the pontiff weak on crime and foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffress, the senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, made the comments on \u201cFox News Live,\u201d two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio <\/a>met with the pope at the Vatican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he called Leo a \u201cgood man\u201d and said the pontiff was \u201csincere in his faith,\u201d Jeffress said the pope was \u201csincerely wrong when it comes to Iran,\u201d according to a video clip he shared on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the pope,\u201d Jeffress added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that God created government for a distinct purpose from the church, citing Romans 13<\/a>. \u201cThe role of government is to protect citizens from evildoers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffress said he was present in the Oval Office three days after the conflict with Iran began, alongside Trump and other faith leaders, and that Trump told the group Iran had been weeks away from having nuclear weapons capable of destroying Israel and threatening the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions between Trump and the pope preceded Jeffress\u2019 comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Leo urged prayers for peace in the Iran conflict, Trump called the pontiff \u201cWEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy\u201d in a Truth Social post<\/a>. Trump also expressed a preference for the pope\u2019s brother, Louis Prevost, describing him as \u201call MAGA\u201d and noting that Prevost had visited the White House the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leo addressed Trump\u2019s criticism directly while speaking to NBC News<\/a> on a flight to Algeria. \u201cI have no fear of either the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel,\u201d the pope said. He added that the Catholic Church wasn’t trying to make foreign policy and that he didn’t see his role as political.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a subsequent Truth Social post, Trump said he didn’t want a pope who thought it was acceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, or one who criticized American military action against Venezuela. He also claimed that Leo had been selected by the Catholic Church solely because he was American, and that the Vatican had calculated this would be the best way to manage his presidency. \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leo denied Trump\u2019s claim that the Vatican supported Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and said the Catholic Church\u2019s mission was to preach peace and oppose all nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump also criticized Leo for meeting with David Axelrod, a Democratic political consultant and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and called on the pope to \u201cget his act together\u201d and \u201cstop catering to the Radical Left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffress is a long-standing Trump supporter who is scheduled to speak at Rededicate 250, a free public event planned for Sunday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event is billed as a national day of prayer, praise and thanksgiving, organized as part of the Freedom 250 celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffress has compared the gathering to Explo \u201872, a Campus Crusade for Christ conference held in Dallas in 1972 that drew more than 80,000 college and high school students. That event featured the late televangelist Billy Graham and musician Kris Kristofferson, who had recently converted to Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a previous interview with\u00a0news media The Christian Post, Jeffress said he anticipated Rededicate 250 would be \u201cas big or bigger\u201d than Explo \u201872, and said Trump believed the anniversary was a moment for the country to rededicate itself to God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Anugrah Kumar,\u00a0 Pastor Robert Jeffress \u00a0of First Baptist Dallas\u00a0(pictured) on Saturday said President Donald Trump has a better grasp of what the Bible teaches about government than Pope Leo XIV, specifically on the question of military action against Iran, entering a public dispute that has already seen Trump call the pontiff weak on crime and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[119,200,181,179],"coauthors":[648],"class_list":{"0":"post-12940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faith","8":"tag-bible","9":"tag-god","10":"tag-trump","11":"tag-usa"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Robert-Jeffress.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12942,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940\/revisions\/12942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12940"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}