Lindsey Graham Calls the Pope Dumb on Live TV While Defending Trump

Donald Trump has become his party’s golden calf.

Republican lawmakers and politicians are turning on the Catholic Church to defend the president’s warmongering.

Speaking with Fox News Monday night, Senator Lindsey Graham spoke directly to Pope Leo XIV, telling him that he was “miscalculating” by advocating for world peace.

Last week, reports emerged that the Pentagon had openly threatened a Vatican ambassador in January, days after the pope made antiwar remarks during his State of the World address. In the days since that report, Trump has fired off several antagonistic comments against the leader of the Catholic Church, repeatedly attempting to sour the pope’s reputation by claiming that Leo is “terrible for foreign policy” and “weak on crime.” That is, despite the fact that religious leaders are neither responsible for foreign policy nor in charge of lowering crime rates.

Graham went on to compare Iran’s ayatollah to Nazi Germany, claiming that the religious order really did not “get” the level of “evil” that Trump was contending with in Iran.

Also Monday night, in a roundtable on CNN, prominent Republican donor Hal Lambert claimed that the clash was “all about trying to hurt President Trump’s Catholic vote for Republicans during the midterms,” citing former Obama strategist David Axelrod’s visit last week to the Vatican.

The Catholic Church has 1.42 billion baptized members around the world, with more than 70 million in the U.S. Roughly 20 percent of Americans identify as Catholic, making it the second-most-popular religion in the country behind Protestantism.

Vice President JD Vance—who converted to Catholicism in 2019—tried to squash the beef, telling Fox News that “it’s a good thing” that the White House and the Holy See are at odds with each other.

“We’re always going to have disagreements on matter of public policy,” Vance said. “We certainly have a good relationship with the Vatican, but we’re also going to disagree on substantive questions from time to time, and I don’t think it’s particularly newsworthy.”

It’s not clear how “good” that relationship is, however. Many in the Vatican reportedly interpreted the Pentagon meeting as a threat to use military force against the religious order. The church has since rejected the White House’s invitation to host the pope for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4.

But feuding with a peace-loving pope has not been Trump’s only recent Christian faux pas. Over the weekend, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ to Truth Social, setting off sparks among even some of his most ardent supporters. Several Floridians interviewed by MS NOW on Monday said that they were “disgusted” and “ashamed” of the image, which depicts Trump as a haloed messiah.

“That’s a disgrace. I’m very upset about that. I mean, how egotistical can you possibly be?” said John North, a medical lab worker. “I’m ashamed that he would actually do that. A man I voted for and trust. How could he do that? I mean, people are going to see this at work. I’m upset about that.”

Trump has since deleted the post, telling reporters at the White House that he thought it illustrated him as a doctor healing people.

Senator Ted Cruz refused to pick a side in President Trump’s petty tiff with Pope Leo XIV.

“Are you on the pope’s side or the president’s side?” a TMZ reporter asked Cruz on Monday evening.

“You know what, I’m quite confident that both the pope and the president can speak for themselves,” Cruz replied.

“Well, they are going through a very public sort of beef right now—”

“I understand you wanna get me in the middle of that,” Cruz interrupted. “I trust both of them to express their own views.”

TMZ then proceeded to ask Cruz various questions regarding Trump’s attack, all of which Cruz rebuffed. “Every way you ask the question you’re gonna get the same answer.”

This beef with the pope—in which Trump called him “weak on crime” and accused him of wanting Iran to have a nuclear weapon—comes while Trump and his base are still reeling from the president’s AI post depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Cruz, a devout Southern Baptist, hasn’t commented on that either.

Vice President JD Vance thinks economic terrorism is OK—as long as President Donald Trump’s the one doing it.

Speaking to Fox News Monday night, the vice president made a startling admission about how Donald Trump intended to end the war in Iran.

“When it comes to weapons of war, what they have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. They’ve basically threatened any ship that’s moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Well, as the president of the United States showed, two can play at that game,” Vance said.

“And if the Iranians are going to try and engage in economic terrorism, we’re going to abide by a simple principle: that no Iranian ships are going to get out either,” Vance said.

Still, the vice president insisted that Trump only wanted to see Iranians “thrive and succeed,” as if the president had not threatened to end their entire civilization a little more than a week ago.

Trump’s naval blockade on Iranian ports began Monday. A sustained military blockade would be incredibly expensive and require a large number of warships, and U.S. allies have made it very clear they have no intention of helping out. While it may seem like a quick fix, taking Iranian oil off the market will only squeeze the market, causing energy prices to surge higher. Gas prices in the U.S. have surged beyond $4 a gallon, as crude oil has climbed to over $100 per barrel.

More than 300 people protested outside of the New York offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand Monday to oppose sending U.S. weapons to Israel.

At least 90 protesters were arrested, among them Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. soldier and whistleblower who leaked hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks in 2011, as well as New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés and actor Hari Nef. The protests were organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and the Sunrise Movement. According to JVP, the protesters consisted of U.S. military veterans as well as Jewish, Palestinian, Iranian, and Lebanese New Yorkers.

The protesters were calling on the New York Democrats to support resolutions proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders last month that would block nearly $660 million in weapons sales to Israel. Sanders has attempted to block weapons to Israel before, and 19 Senate Democrats, including Gillibrand and Schumer, voted against his last effort in July.

Israel is bombing Lebanon and Iran with U.S. support and aid, and continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank despite a ceasefire. The war in Iran is overshadowing an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and Israel is also accused of encouraging ethnic cleansing against Shia Muslims in southern Lebanon.

“This is the moment when Schumer and Gillibrand must listen to their constituents,” Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director with Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Associated Press Monday. “The majority of Americans and New Yorkers want a resolution to what the Israeli government is doing.”

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has caused a domestic fluoride shortage, in yet another unintended consequence of a useless and unpopular conflict.

The Associated Press has reported that various U.S. water utility companies across the country have struggled to obtain fluoride because Israel is one of the top providers of fluorosilicic acid. With Israel sending more people into military service, amid attacks on Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza, that supply chain has been disrupted

This has led to “decreased production, and supply shortages for the U.S. market,” Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies officer Dan Hartnett told the AP. Water facilities in Maryland and Pennsylvania have been hit particularly hard, with WSSC Water in Maryland lowering the amount of fluoride in the water from the recommended 0.7 milligrams per liter to just 0.4 milligrams.

Adding fluoride to drinking water has been one of the most effective public health measures in reducing tooth decay. What’s happening now shows the widespread ripple effects that this war is having. From the death and destruction in Lebanon and Iran to high prices at the gas pump, to no more fluoride in some of the water, to even fishermen in the Philippines struggling to get by due to fuel price spikes, this war has permeated through all facets of life around the world—and that will only worsen given the current state of things.