Transcript: Trump Rages as Pope’s Harsh New Rebuke Lands Surprise Blow

Source: The New Republic · Bias: Left

Summary

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the April 14 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.When Donald Trump viciously attacked the Pope and then posted a picture depicting himself as a divine figure, it provoked a massive backlash from many in his own base. That was bad enough, but then Trump offered some rambling spin on it all that was so preposterous in its dishonesty, so insulting, that it quickly made things worse. We think this mess hints at deeper truths about how Trump approaches religious voters, particularly the right-wing evangelicals who are critical to his support. It also helps explain why the Trump coalition and the Trump project are so fragile right now. So we invited on Robert Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of several books about religion and the American right, to make sense of all this for us. Robert, good to have you on.Robert Jones: Thanks. Glad to be here.Sargent: So Trump is angry because Pope Leo has repeatedly criticized the Iran war and especially Trump’s threat to obliterate Iranian civilization. In response, Trump unleashed this crazed rant describing the Pope as “weak on crime,” adding this: “I don’t want a pope who thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Trump also said, “I don’t want a pope who criticizes the president of the United States” because I’m doing what I was elected for. Robert, I just wanted to get your general thoughts on that first.Jones: Well, I guess I’ll start with the last one. “I was doing what I was elected for”—I mean, Trump, of course, thinks that now that he’s been elected, he can be constrained by nothing but his own whim. And so I think that’s really what he’s reacting to here. But, in this case, he’s got the leader of a worldwide church who is also operating out of a 2,000-year-old theological tradition. So Leo is not firing from the hip here. He really is digging pretty deep. And this criticism, again, is not just about the war. It really is weighing these decisions about state violence against Catholic moral teaching. Trump thinks that there should be no criticism of him whatsoever. I mean, this is the authoritarian playbook, right? That you should have no dissenters. And certainly no dissenters with influence or power.Sargent: Exactly. And it doesn’t matter whether they speak for a 2,000-year-old religion or not. So Trump also posted this deranged image that portrayed him as a divine figure in a white robe, healing a sick man by placing his hand on the man’s forehead. This got MAGA figures angry. Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an anti-Christ spirit.” A Daily Wire reporter called it “outrageous blasphemy,” adding “he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness.” Christian MAGA activist Sean Fucht said: “This should be deleted immediately.” And former Republican spinner Ari Fleischer said “it’s inappropriate and embarrassing—it’s offensive.” There was much more like that. Robert, can you just explain at the core why this image is seen as blasphemous?Jones: Well, Trump is clearly displaying himself as Jesus. So, in the image he’s got on a white robe with a kind of red robe over it. And you could find hundreds of images like that of Jesus, dressed this way—this white robe, this red sash over the top. And he’s got this glowing hand, right, as he’s kind of leaning over this person in their sickbed. So this is also this depiction of supernatural divine healing power that he’s claiming for himself. One other thing I would say is that this is not the first time Trump has done this. You know, it was actually just after Easter last year that Trump actually posted an image of himself as the Pope, dressed up in papal vestments. So, you know, this is not the first time he’s posted things like this, assuming either the chair of the Pope himself or the image of Jesus.Sargent: Well, Trump actually deleted the image of himself as a divine figure. Now let’s listen to how he tried to spin his way out of this.Reporter (voiceover): Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?Donald Trump (voiceover): Well, it wasn’t a picture. It was me. I did post it and I thought it was me as the doctor and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one. So I had—I just heard about it. And I said, how did they come up with that? It’s supposed to be me as a doctor.Sargent: So, Robert, apparently Trump thinks doctors have celestial light pouring forth from their palms and can heal people by touching them. As the picture showed, what did you make of his excuse?Jones: Well, he’s reaching deep for this one, I’ve got to say. I mean, the problem is that the image really didn’t allow much wiggle room.

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Transcript: Trump Rages as Pope’s Harsh New Rebuke Lands Surprise Blow
The New Republic

Transcript: Trump Rages as Pope’s Harsh New Rebuke Lands Surprise Blow

Left

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the April 14 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.When Donald Trump viciously attacked the Pope and then posted a picture depicting himself as a divine figure, it provoked a massive backlash from many in his own base. That was bad enough, but then Trump offered some rambling spin on it all that was so preposterous in its dishonesty, so insulting, that it quickly made things worse. We think this mess hints at deeper truths about how Trump approaches religious voters, particularly the right-wing evangelicals who are critical to his support. It also helps explain why the Trump coalition and the Trump project are so fragile right now. So we invited on Robert Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of several books about religion and the American right, to make sense of all this for us. Robert, good to have you on.Robert Jones: Thanks. Glad to be here.Sargent: So Trump is angry because Pope Leo has repeatedly criticized the Iran war and especially Trump’s threat to obliterate Iranian civilization. In response, Trump unleashed this crazed rant describing the Pope as “weak on crime,” adding this: “I don’t want a pope who thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Trump also said, “I don’t want a pope who criticizes the president of the United States” because I’m doing what I was elected for. Robert, I just wanted to get your general thoughts on that first.Jones: Well, I guess I’ll start with the last one. “I was doing what I was elected for”—I mean, Trump, of course, thinks that now that he’s been elected, he can be constrained by nothing but his own whim. And so I think that’s really what he’s reacting to here. But, in this case, he’s got the leader of a worldwide church who is also operating out of a 2,000-year-old theological tradition. So Leo is not firing from the hip here. He really is digging pretty deep. And this criticism, again, is not just about the war. It really is weighing these decisions about state violence against Catholic moral teaching. Trump thinks that there should be no criticism of him whatsoever. I mean, this is the authoritarian playbook, right? That you should have no dissenters. And certainly no dissenters with influence or power.Sargent: Exactly. And it doesn’t matter whether they speak for a 2,000-year-old religion or not. So Trump also posted this deranged image that portrayed him as a divine figure in a white robe, healing a sick man by placing his hand on the man’s forehead. This got MAGA figures angry. Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an anti-Christ spirit.” A Daily Wire reporter called it “outrageous blasphemy,” adding “he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness.” Christian MAGA activist Sean Fucht said: “This should be deleted immediately.” And former Republican spinner Ari Fleischer said “it’s inappropriate and embarrassing—it’s offensive.” There was much more like that. Robert, can you just explain at the core why this image is seen as blasphemous?Jones: Well, Trump is clearly displaying himself as Jesus. So, in the image he’s got on a white robe with a kind of red robe over it. And you could find hundreds of images like that of Jesus, dressed this way—this white robe, this red sash over the top. And he’s got this glowing hand, right, as he’s kind of leaning over this person in their sickbed. So this is also this depiction of supernatural divine healing power that he’s claiming for himself. One other thing I would say is that this is not the first time Trump has done this. You know, it was actually just after Easter last year that Trump actually posted an image of himself as the Pope, dressed up in papal vestments. So, you know, this is not the first time he’s posted things like this, assuming either the chair of the Pope himself or the image of Jesus.Sargent: Well, Trump actually deleted the image of himself as a divine figure. Now let’s listen to how he tried to spin his way out of this.Reporter (voiceover): Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?Donald Trump (voiceover): Well, it wasn’t a picture. It was me. I did post it and I thought it was me as the doctor and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one. So I had—I just heard about it. And I said, how did they come up with that? It’s supposed to be me as a doctor.Sargent: So, Robert, apparently Trump thinks doctors have celestial light pouring forth from their palms and can heal people by touching them. As the picture showed, what did you make of his excuse?Jones: Well, he’s reaching deep for this one, I’ve got to say. I mean, the problem is that the image really didn’t allow much wiggle room.

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