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Republican senator criticizes Trump’s ‘holy war’ with Pope Leo | US politics
A Republican lawmaker has condemned what he refers to as Donald Trump’s “holy war” against Pope Leo XIV.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a long supporter of Trump and the ultraconservative Maga movement, condemned the president’s attacks on the pope during a Fox News interview on Saturday.
“I love the president like a taco,” said Kennedy, using an odd turn of phrase. He added: “I don’t always agree with him, but I think he wants a better world. But I don’t agree with him about this new holy war with the pope.” The senator’s criticism, and his choice of words, might not sit well with Trump, given that his critics have been using the word “taco” as an acronym for “Trump always chickens out”.
Kennedy is a Methodist and not a Catholic, a point he stressed in the interview, perhaps to distinguish himself from the first Catholic president, Democrat John F Kennedy. The Republican senator and his wife founded their local church chapter, according to his government biography.
Kennedy added that he has “great respect for Catholicism” and suggested that the pope should be “entitled to his opinion”. “Why do we want to have a fight with the pope?” Kennedy continued. “It’s a distraction. And the press just sucks it up like a Hoover Deluxe [vacuum cleaner].”
Kennedy’s latest interview comes as Trump and the pope have been locked in a days-long feud over the US-Israel war against Iran.
Two weeks ago, Leo responded to Trump’s threat that a “whole civilization will die” in Iran if the country did not end its blockade of the strait of Hormuz by calling Trump’s remarks “truly unacceptable”, noted “attacks on civilian infrastructure are against international law” and urged Americans to contact their members of Congress to call for peace.
In a Truth Social post last Sunday, Trump called Pope Leo “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
Trump added: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” The pope has, in fact, spoken out against what he called “the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons”.
The president has repeatedly praised Pope Leo XIV’s eldest brother, Louis Prevost, an avid Trump supporter who lives in Florida.
Last week, Trump also posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, which even some Christian supporters of the president denounced as blasphemous.
JD Vance, whose forthcoming book is about his recent conversion to Catholicism, has defended Trump amid anger among Christian voters. “Stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic church,” the vice-president told Fox News when asked if he agreed with Trump’s attacks on the pope. “And let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance added.
Leo told reporters on Saturday that he had no intention of having a back-and-forth debate with Trump, but noted that he has “no fear” of the Trump administration.
UK News
US midterm primaries 2026 live: results and updates as elections in Georgia and Oklahoma test Trump’s power | US midterm elections 2026
Results expected as voters cast ballots in three states and Washington DC
Fran Lawther
Voters have been casting their ballots in primary elections in Alabama, Oklahoma and Georgia – where a closely watched runoff will decide who faces off against Democratic candidates in Senate and gubernatorial races in November.
In Washington DC – a Democratic stronghold – voters were also selecting a candidate for the party ahead of November’s mayoral election.
In Alabama, a Republican primary runoff for Senate between Trump-backed Barry Moore and Jared Hudson is another test of how far Trump’s endorsement can sway voters.
These primaries are the latest test of Donald Trump’s power over the Republican party. In deeply conservative Oklahoma, Trump has given his early backing to Kevin Hern in the senate seat previously held by homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Hern has kept other potential big challengers at bay in Oklahoma, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1990, according to AP.
But a bigger test of Trump’s influence – which has usually proved potent in Republican primaries this year – may come in the crowded race to succeed outgoing governor Kevin Stitt.
In Georgia, meanwhile, Republicans will finalize their selections for gubernatorial and US senate elections.
For the senate, US representative Mike Collins and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley are the finalists for the Republican nomination. Whoever wins will challenge rising Democratic star Jon Ossoff for the seat in November.
In the Republican primary campaign for Georgia governor, Trump-backed Burt Jones was facing off against the healthcare billionaire and political newcomer Rick Jackson. Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state and longtime political enemy of Trump, was locked out of the race when he finished third earlier in the year.
We’ll bring you the latest results and reactions as the night unfolds.
Key events
Trump’s candidate trails in early count in Republican primary race for Georgia governor
With the first 20% of the ballots counted in the Republican primary in Georgia to be the party’s candidate for governor in November, the Trump-endorsed candidate, Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, trails health care executive Rick Jackson by nearly 20 points: 59.4% to 40.6%.
Jackson has spent over $100 million on his campaign.
Georgia Republican Senate primary on a knife edge in early count
With 15% of the vote counted in Georgia, the race for the Republican nomination for the US Senate, to take on incumbent Jon Ossoff, is very close. Trump-endorsed congressman Mike Collins has 51.9% of the vote so far, to 48.1% for former football coach Derek Dooley, who is backed by the Georgia governor Brian Kemp. The current margin in less than 6,000 votes.
Polls close in Georgia primary runoff elections
Polling places closed at 7pm local time across Georgia, where voters cast ballots in several primary runoff races, including Republican contests to be that party’s nominee for the US Senate and governor. We will bring you updates on the vote count soon.
A trip to the Georgia secretary of state’s website is a reminder that the state’s elections are still overseen by Brad Raffensperger, the top voting official Donald Trump threatened with possible prosecution during a recorded phone call in early 2021, if he did not help the then president “find 11,780 votes”, one more than he needed to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the state’s 2020 presidential election.
Weighed down by his subsequent unpopularity with Trump voters, for refusing to help him cheat, Raffensperger finished a distant third last month in the Republican primary to be the party’s candidate in the November election for governor.
Raffensperger got less than half the votes of the two leading contenders who faced off in today’s runoff: the Trump-backed Burt Jones, who supported his effort to overturn the 2020 election through false claims of fraud, and a self-funding healthcare billionaire, Rick Jackson.
Peter Stone
The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using justice department lawsuits, FBI investigations, and an executive order to limit voting by mail, moves mirroring the US president’s false claims he lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud, say election experts and ex-officials.
Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the DoJ, the FBI and elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud, which can intimidate election workers and voters in swing states that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
The justice department has also filed lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from 30 states – even though, by law, states control elections – and the FBI has launched investigations into debunked allegations of voting fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin and a few other swing states that Trump lost in 2020.
Trump in late March this year issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules, which Trump has long claimed without evidence contribute to fraud. The order gives the United States Postal Service unprecedented powers to issue new rules making voting by mail harder.
The administration’s multi-pronged push to change voting rules is under way despite laws that empower states and Congress to set election rules, sparking lawsuits from states and nonpartisan voting rights groups.
Fran Lawther
Donald Trump has a strong record in this year’s primaries so far – with many of his preferred candidates winning their primaries.
But none have faced a self-funded rival with Rick Jackson’s spending power, the AP reports. Trump has backed Burt Jones, who, as lieutenant governor, was part of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, and the president has repeatedly praised Jones’ loyalty.
Jackson has chipped in more than $93m of his own money to win the nomination. The 71-year-old businessman amassed a fortune from his company that provides contract healthcare personnel, and he’s used it to blanket television and online platforms with ads.
Results expected as voters cast ballots in three states and Washington DC
Fran Lawther
Voters have been casting their ballots in primary elections in Alabama, Oklahoma and Georgia – where a closely watched runoff will decide who faces off against Democratic candidates in Senate and gubernatorial races in November.
In Washington DC – a Democratic stronghold – voters were also selecting a candidate for the party ahead of November’s mayoral election.
In Alabama, a Republican primary runoff for Senate between Trump-backed Barry Moore and Jared Hudson is another test of how far Trump’s endorsement can sway voters.
These primaries are the latest test of Donald Trump’s power over the Republican party. In deeply conservative Oklahoma, Trump has given his early backing to Kevin Hern in the senate seat previously held by homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Hern has kept other potential big challengers at bay in Oklahoma, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1990, according to AP.
But a bigger test of Trump’s influence – which has usually proved potent in Republican primaries this year – may come in the crowded race to succeed outgoing governor Kevin Stitt.
In Georgia, meanwhile, Republicans will finalize their selections for gubernatorial and US senate elections.
For the senate, US representative Mike Collins and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley are the finalists for the Republican nomination. Whoever wins will challenge rising Democratic star Jon Ossoff for the seat in November.
In the Republican primary campaign for Georgia governor, Trump-backed Burt Jones was facing off against the healthcare billionaire and political newcomer Rick Jackson. Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state and longtime political enemy of Trump, was locked out of the race when he finished third earlier in the year.
We’ll bring you the latest results and reactions as the night unfolds.
Retired British couple Jane and Alan Kelvey spoke to BBC’s Newsnight after coming into close contact with Russian frigate the Admiral Grigorovich on Tuesday morning.
“They gave out five blasts on their horn, which means, have you seen us?”, explained Jane.
“We immediately turned two degrees to port so that they could see we’d made a deliberate change, of course, which meant we had seen them,” she added.
The Russian Defence Ministry said the yacht had been on a “dangerous approach” towards the warship, and its crew fired into its path with rifles after making several attempts to contact it over the radio and after launching warning flares.
The Ministry of Defence has described the encounter as an “isolated incident” and not linked to the seizure of a Russian shadow fleet tanker in the Channel on Sunday.
Key events
Preamble
My, that was an action-packed conclusion to France v Senegal, wasn’t it? We can only hope for half the excitement in the other half of Group I between two teams that have not played in the World Cup* this century.
Norway last played in the World Cup* in 1998 and upset Brazil to reach the knockout rounds. They also appeared the last time the Cup was held in the USA in 1994, missing out on the knockout rounds in peculiar fashion – four teams tied with four points and an even goal difference. Norway only scored once; therefore, they were the odd team out. Italy opened that group with a loss to Ireland and scraped into the knockout rounds as one of the third-place teams. Heard they made a bit of a run after that.
Iraq last played in the World Cup* in 1986, before any of the current players were born. (I was a rising senior in high school, but it’s safe to say their appearance isn’t something I recall, as I was mostly fretting about calculus and my lack of dating options.) They’re seeking their first World Cup point, having dropped all three matches in 1986, though only by one goal each. They’ve fared relatively well in Asian Cup play since the unlamented demise of the Hussein family, including the 2007 championship.
(* – technically, at least in ancient parlance, the “World Cup” includes the qualifiers, and the final 32, er, 48 teams are participating in the “World Cup finals.” So it’s not quite correct to say they haven’t played in the World Cup recently. I pledge to be less pedantic the rest of this session.)
Hello all, and I hope you’re all enjoying the debate over the no-call in the France-Senegal match (unanimous view in the referees’ message board I frequent: correct no-call) and also the goal that followed.
Follow along with Daniel Harris, and I’ll be back with a proper preamble when that one has ended.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Nick Ames on Norway’s return to the World Cup:
If Norway’s highly fancied generation need a warning from history they need only look back 32 years and study the lessons from another searing, suspenseful American summer. They had raced through qualifying at England’s expense to reach their first World Cup since 1938; their top players were starting to make it in the Premier League and through the euphoria shone a confidence that a place in the knockout stage, at least, was there to be seized.
“When we got there we didn’t manage to even get close to the quality of play we had produced in qualification,” remembers Lars Bohinen, one of the silkier elements in a side that, under Egil Olsen, became renowned for an uncompromising and no-frills approach. “That’s the biggest disappointment when I talk now to my old teammates. We never got near to performing at the level we needed.”
In fact Norway were a shade unfortunate. Planted in a strength-sapping group alongside Mexico, Republic of Ireland and Italy, they finished fourth despite the teams finishing level on points and goal difference. Their failure came in attack; Olsen’s side were eliminated because they only scored once, beating Mexico before ultimately running aground in a famously sweltering goalless draw against Jack Charlton’s team at Giants Stadium.
This year’s Group I does not look much easier. But the dynamic of Norwegian football is different now; the not entirely inaccurate picture of burly Vikings replaced by elite, technically supreme talents in the moulds of Martin Ødegaard and Antonio Nusa. There is an Erling Haaland-shaped spearhead to convert chances that flow more frequently in Ståle Solbakken’s fast, flexible set-up.
You can read the full article below:
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