{"id":208180,"date":"2026-04-19T08:16:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-voters-say-the-pope-should-stay-in-his-lane-and-butt-out-of-the-iran-war-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T08:16:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:16:36","slug":"trump-voters-say-the-pope-should-stay-in-his-lane-and-butt-out-of-the-iran-war-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-voters-say-the-pope-should-stay-in-his-lane-and-butt-out-of-the-iran-war-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump voters say the pope should 'stay in his lane' and butt out of the Iran war – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PHOENIX \u2014 Christopher Brandlin was born Catholic, raised Catholic, went to Catholic school and wore a flag-themed cross over his flag-themed tie for President Donald Trump\u2019s appearance Thursday in Las Vegas.
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Yet in the dispute between Trump and Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war, Brandlin believes it\u2019s the pontiff, not the president, who\u2019s in the wrong.
Pope Leo is \u201cactually using more politics than he should,\u201d Brandlin, a Republican candidate for a Nevada state Assembly seat, said in an interview.
The U.S. attack on Iran has pitted church against state, as Pope Leo and Trump clash publicly over the proper means of ending global conflicts. The war has also tested Trump\u2019s most ardent voters, who had relished his past statements that the U.S. needed to avoid costly foreign entanglements.
It appeared that the dustup between the two leaders might split the president\u2019s coalition, consisting in part of Christian conservatives who like his opposition to abortion rights, and \u201cAmerica First\u201d voters who believed he would focus on conditions at home.
Yet in interviews with more than 20 Trump supporters who attended his event in Las Vegas and his campaign rally Friday at a megachurch in Phoenix, there was little hint of divided loyalties. Again and again, core Trump voters said that Pope Leo is intruding on the president\u2019s prerogatives when it comes to war and peace and Trump is right to use the military force to defang Iran.
Jim Brizeno, 71, a Catholic who was in the audience for Trump’s roundtable discussion on the economy in Las Vegas, admonished the pope to \u201cstay in your lane!\u201d
Wearing a cap reading, \u201cTrump 45-47-48,\u201d a reference to Trump\u2019s past, present and a constitutionally forbidden future presidency, Brizeno said that Trump was \u201cwithin his rights to defend himself and defend his actions\u201d against the pope\u2019s rebuke.
Neither Trump nor the pope is apologizing, though Leo told reporters aboard the papal plane<\/a> Saturday that he was not trying to “debate the president” in what seemed to be an effort to tamp down the disagreement.
Leo, the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide and history\u2019s first American pope, posted a statement<\/a> on X on April 10 saying that a \u201cdisciple of Christ \u2026 is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.\u201d
\u201cMilitary action will not create space for freedom or times of peace,\u201d he wrote.
Two days later, Trump posted a retort<\/a> calling the pontiff \u201cweak on crime and terrible on foreign policy.\u201d
The back-and-forth continued, with Leo telling reporters on April 13 at the start of a trip to Africa, \u201cI will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among states to find just solutions to problems.\u201d
Cue the president, who wrote the next day:<\/a> \u201cWill someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months, and that for Iran to have a nuclear bomb is absolutely unacceptable.\u201d
Trump didn\u2019t mention the pope during his two stops out West, as he touted his policies and tried to mobilize voters ahead of the midterm elections in November. But many of his supporters have been watching and have taken a side. Trump\u2019s side.
A common refrain among the Trump faithful was that the pope was venturing into a secular arena that he\u2019d best avoid.
Blake Marnell, 61, a retiree from San Diego who attended Trump\u2019s rally at Dream City Church in Phoenix, said that when Leo \u201ctries to make himself political, he goes into areas where he\u2019s probably not in his wheelhouse.\u201d
Marnell wore an orange-and-white suit in a pattern depicting a brick wall, symbolizing Trump\u2019s promise to build a wall on the southern border.
\u201cAnyone can talk about politics, but if I were the pope, I wouldn\u2019t be talking about it,\u201d he added.
Scholars and religious leaders disputed the view that Leo is trespassing when it comes to matters of armed conflict. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus delivered a series of blessings that included: \u201cBlessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.\u201d
The church has long grappled with such issues, and Leo isn\u2019t the first pope to speak out: Pope John Paul II<\/a> opposed then-President George W. Bush\u2019s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
\u201cQuestions of war and peace have been the church\u2019s lane for centuries,\u201d John Carr, founder of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, said in an interview. \u201cThey\u2019ve been thinking about the use of violence since the invention of gunpowder.\u201d
Bishop Mariann Budde, of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., told NBC News: \u201cSpeaking about war, peace and human dignity is squarely within the vocation of all religious leaders, because those are moral questions at the heart of the common good. When a political leader answers that witness with insults, he is treating moral accountability like partisan combat, and that says far more about our politics than it does about the pope.\u201d
In his inauguration speech in January 2025, Trump said that he would measure success not only by wars won, but \u201cwars we never get into.\u201d Part of his political appeal has been his pledge to avoid overseas entanglements. In interviews, though, the people who came to hear him speak accepted his contention that the Iran war is necessary to keep the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.
\u201cThere were a lot of wars in the Bible and they were justified,\u201d said Penny Visser, 65, of Sun City, Arizona, who came to the Phoenix event with her daughter, Tori, 20, a college student. \u201cWhat gives the pope the right to say no on this one.\u201d
\u201cWhat gives him the right to come into our country and say, \u2018No, you can\u2019t do this and this and this.\u2019 He needs to stay out of our country\u2019s business.\u201d
Though he has speculated about his fate in the afterlife, Trump has fostered the notion that heaven is smiling upon him and his policies.
On the one-year anniversary of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump told reporters: \u201cGod was protecting me. Maybe because God wanted to see our country do better or do really well \u2014 make America great again.\u201d
He recently posted an image on his social media site, Truth Social, that depicted him as a Christ-like figure in robes attending to a bedridden man. Amid a backlash, the picture was later taken down, and Trump said he had thought it portrayed him as a doctor.
On Wednesday, he reposted an image<\/a> depicting Jesus embracing him in his signature dark suit and red tie.
\u201cThe pope is so full of crap,\u201d said Marine Corps veteran Joshua Remmert, 48, of Mesa, Arizona, after watching Trump\u2019s rally in Phoenix.
\u201cI know President Trump was blessed and given to us by God. So, yes, when he does something like go after Iran, I think it\u2019s the right thing. I think God is on our side.\u201d
Peter Nicholas is a senior White House reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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