The Pope and the President

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The Morning

The Pope and the President

The two most powerful Americans in the world are clashing.

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In Algiers.

Credit...

Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

By

Sam Sifton

I am the host of The Morning.

April 14, 2026,

6:38 a.m. ET

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Pope Leo’s

visit to Algeria today

was meant to be stirring. The first member of the Order of Augustine to ascend to the papacy is visiting the place where Augustine was bishop starting in A.D. 395.

Instead, President Trump is hammering him.

Leo doesn’t like to see war in the Middle East. Trump doesn’t like other leaders criticizing him, even implicitly. After he called the pope “weak on crime” and posted an A.I. image of himself as a Jesus-like figure, he said, “I’m just responding to Pope Leo.”

The pontiff seemed unfazed. (“Too many innocent people are being killed,” he said on his way to a 10-day Africa tour. “Someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”) But Catholic clerics in America

called on Trump to apologize

. He declined.

It’s an odd conflict. The people in these two roles have generally treated each other with deference, or pretended to. What gives?

A curious tableau

Image

Trump’s A.I. answer to Pope Leo.

Credit...

via Truth Social

This image Trump posted, then deleted, was especially strange, and not only because the patient in it bears a resemblance to Jon Stewart,

as the late night hosts pointed out

.

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