White House called on the carpet for risky war on Pope Leo: 'This is preposterous'

A report that Donald Trump’s administration menaced the first American-born pope led the entire panel on MS NOW’s "Morning Joe” to wonder what they could possibly be thinking as they risk alienating millions of Catholics.

According to a report from The Free Press, after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech where he criticized the Trump administration, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby demanded an audience with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, and then issued a threat, reportedly telling the pope’s representative, “The United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

After MS NOW host Willie Geist reported on the exchange, contributor Mike Barnicle, a lifelong Catholic, made a compelling case that the president and his underlings created a massive and enduring problem for themselves.

“What do you make of what you're hearing here?” Geist prompted his guest.

“I make that they are once again clowning the atmosphere up, the Trump administration, the idea that they would try to intimidate Pope Leo, the first American-born pope, is just absurd," the incensed Barnicle replied. “The idea that they would have anything to say critical of the Catholic church or the pope itself, the pope himself is absurd, especially given the Easter morning tweet from the president of the United States, which was so deeply offensive to any breathing, thinking human being that it's outrageous for the Trump administration to pose any problems they allege they have with the Vatican.”

“I went to parochial school for eight consecutive years, and I got thrown out nearly every year by the nuns. You know, every grade — you deserve early stuff like that,” he recalled. But the one thing that you get to, to hold on to when you're raised Catholic, born Catholic, raised Catholic, especially by my mother, we used to call her 'my mother, the nun.' The one thing you retain, I would think, is that the theory of the Catholic church is rooted in a simple phrase: the least among us.”

“So if you look at the Trump administration's behavior toward the least among us, it is almost criminal,” he accused. “It is certainly a sin because they don't care for the least among us, and that we should all care for the least among us. Because when we care for them, we care for ourselves.”

Normally unflappable former diplomat Richard Haass was incredulous at the breach of protocol.

“I mean, of all of all the fights to pick,” he exclaimed. “So we give Russia a free pass. We let Iran enhance half the stuff it's doing. We attack Europe and so forth –– I go around the world –– we give China a free pass, and who do we go after? We go after our democratic allies, and then we go after the Catholic church.”

“That's our priorities for who we want to pick fights with,” he noted. “This is, this is, Mike used the word ‘absurd.’ This is preposterous that we are doing. And again, we're forfeiting the high ground. There's actually a serious part of this; we are forfeiting the high ground. Why aren't we trying to build support around the world? The idea that you can do everything with bullets and bombs, you can do some things, but this war should have taught us that you can’t do it all.”

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