Trump's Pastor Claims the President Understands the Bible Better Than Pope Leo XIV

Pastor Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas and one of President Donald Trump's most prominent evangelical allies, made a striking assertion on Fox News on Saturday, claiming that Trump appeared to have 'a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the Pope.' The remark came as relations between the White House and the Vatican remained at one of their lowest points in recent memory.

Appearing on Fox News, Jeffress said he had been present in the Oval Office with Trump just three days after the president launched the US-Israeli attack on Iran. The segment was shared directly by Jeffress on his own verified X account, where he posted the Fox News clip discussing 'the Pope, the President, and UFOs.' Speaking on air, Jeffress said the visit left him with the clear impression that the president was more biblically grounded than Pope Leo XIV on matters of government.

A Theological Case for Government Force

Jeffress framed his defence of Trump in explicitly scriptural terms, drawing a sharp line between the missions of the church and the state. 'The pope ought to know and I think he does know, God created both the church and government for two distinct purposes,' he told Fox News. 'The role of the church is to point people to faith in Jesus Christ, but the role of government is to protect citizens from evil-doers.'

He stopped short of dismissing the pontiff entirely. 'The pope is a good man, he's sincere in his faith,' Jeffress said, 'but he is sincerely wrong when it comes to Iran.' He then delivered his sharpest line of the segment: 'The great irony is it looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches about the role of government than the pope has! And I'm glad the president hasn't backed down at all.'

The comments landed as Trump's public dispute with Pope Leo XIV was already deepening. Speaking on 'The Hugh Hewitt Show' on 4 May, Trump accused the pontiff of being sympathetic to Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. 'The pope would rather talk about the fact that it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,' Trump said. 'I don't think that's very good. I think he's endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.' In an earlier April Truth Social post, Trump had called Leo 'WEAK on Crime' and accused him of 'catering to the Radical Left.'

A Feud That Has Been Building for Months

The tensions between Trump and Pope Leo XIV did not emerge overnight. The first major flashpoint came in October 2025, when Leo said that someone who opposes abortion but supports the 'inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States' cannot truly be called pro-life, drawing an immediate pushback from the White House. Speaking outside his Castel Gandolfo retreat on 4 November 2025, the pope went further, saying that 'many people who've lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what's going on right now,' citing scripture to remind Catholics that their faith calls for welcoming strangers.

The rift widened in June 2025, when Leo condemned the US-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during his 22 June Sunday Angelus address, saying 'alarming news continues to emerge from the Middle East, especially from Iran.' He also posted directly on X via the official Pontifex account, writing that 'War does not solve problems; on the contrary, it amplifies them and inflicts deep wounds on the history of peoples, which take generations to heal.'

Leo has continued to hold firm. Speaking to reporters as he departed Castel Gandolfo on 5 May 2026, the pontiff responded directly to Trump's nuclear accusations, saying 'for years, the Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt on that point,' and adding that anyone wishing to criticise him should 'do so truthfully.'

Who Is Robert Jeffress

Jeffress is no peripheral figure in American evangelical politics. A Fox News contributor and senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, he has been one of Trump's most visible religious supporters since 2016. Trump named Jeffress as a member of his Evangelical Advisory Board in June 2016, and he preached at Trump's private inauguration service at St John's Episcopal Church in January 2017. He has remained a consistent White House presence across both terms.

His willingness to wade into geopolitical disputes on theological grounds is not new. In August 2017, Jeffress declared that 'God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary — including war — to stop evil,' and that 'in the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong-Un.'

Rubio's Attempt at Diplomacy

The Jeffress interview aired just days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Vatican on 7 May, meeting Pope Leo XIV for over 45 minutes at the Apostolic Palace. According to a Vatican statement, the 'cordial talks' covered bilateral relations with 'particular attention given to countries experiencing war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations.'

Rubio denied the trip was designed to repair relations, telling reporters it was 'a trip we had planned from before,' though he acknowledged 'obviously, we had some stuff that happened.' The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary for the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education, described the meeting as an attempt 'to return the confrontation to a quieter, more institutional register,' writing in an analysis that diplomats call this kind of work 'cooling the rhetoric' and that it is 'the necessary precondition for any substantive realignment, whenever that might come.'

The public remarks from Jeffress, a figure with direct and documented access to Trump's Oval Office, illustrate how deeply theological the Trump-Pope Leo dispute has become. With Leo marking his first anniversary as pontiff and Rubio's Vatican visit still fresh, Jeffress' comments signal that at least part of Trump's evangelical base has no intention of moderating its stance, regardless of what is being negotiated through official diplomatic channels.