Transcript: Angry Trump Spirals as Poll Shows Him Losing to Pope Badly |
Transcript: Angry Trump Spirals as Poll Shows Him Losing to Pope Badly
As Trump keeps attacking Pope Leo, a scholar-of-religion explains how MAGA persuaded Trump that he’s a more hallowed figure than the Pope—and why that’s resulting in a total fiasco for him.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 7 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Donald Trump has been raging at Pope Leo for weeks over the Pope’s criticism of the Iran War. And this week Trump attacked Pope Leo again in truly bizarre terms, declaring that he’s “endangering Catholics” by advocating for peace and not supporting Trump’s war. This was strikingly personal and extremely ill-advised because new polling shows that Trump is losing his battle with the Pope very, very badly. Importantly, not only do large majorities reject Trump’s attacks, big majorities also side with the Pope on their underlying dispute. We think that’s encouraging in hidden ways. So we’re talking about all this with one of our go-to guests on these matters, Sarah Posner, a scholar of religion who writes for Talking Points Memo and hosts the Reign of Error podcast. Good to have you back on, Sarah.
Sarah Posner: Thanks for having me.
Sargent: So let’s start with Donald Trump’s latest attack on the Pope. Here’s Trump on a right-wing podcast when asked about their ongoing battle.
Donald Trump (voiceover): Well, the Pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people. But I guess if it’s up to the Pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
Sargent: So there Trump repeats one of his favorite lines—that the Pope wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That’s a vile way to characterize the Pope’s criticism of the war. But that aside, note the added line here about the Pope endangering a lot of Catholics. Sarah, what do you make of that and how will Catholics receive it?
Posner: I think that Trump is flailing around on this. He’s trying to find a way to contest Pope Leo’s message of peace. And so he’s coming back at him with this ridiculous claim that A, he doesn’t care if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, and B, that that lack of caring about that will endanger a lot of Catholics.
I think if Trump felt confident that he was winning this war of words with Pope Leo, he would not feel compelled to flail around on a right-wing radio show and claim that Catholics were being endangered by their own pope.
Sargent: You’d think. Well, the Washington Post had a really interesting new poll which shows how badly Trump is losing here. It found that 57 percent of Americans have a negative reaction to Trump’s claim that the Pope thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And as an aside, 87 percent reject Trump recently posting an image depicting himself as Jesus. Sarah, I find that heartening.
It suggests that the public really gets how dishonest Trump is being in attacking the Pope. It’s almost as if Trump is unable to grasp that the Pope might be broadly seen as a more honest interlocutor than Trump is. I mean that sincerely. I think Trump is unable to get that the Pope might be seen as a more honest and more pious figure than him.
Posner: I think he cannot fathom it because he has been told for well over a decade by his most loyal base that God has anointed him to lead America. And so the idea that Pope Leo is a moral voice for the world—or for Americans in particular—is anathema to Trump.
I mean, that’s part of his narcissistic personality: because he’s been anointed by God in his view, somebody else cannot be speaking on moral or ethical issues to Catholics and to non-Catholics around the world. And I think that this is further evidenced by the comment that JD Vance made when this whole thing started, when........