Article #18789

US president directs fresh criticism at pontiff days before secretary of state Marco Rubio’s visit to Vatican

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has issued a fresh verbal attack against Pope Leo XIV, accusing the pontiff of “endangering a lot of Catholics” because “he thinks it’s fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

The remarks come two days before Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, meets Leo at the Vatican in an effort to ease the tensions sparked by Trump’s previous broadside against the Chicago-born pontiff over his condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran.