Billionaire Trump ally melts down in spat with pope: ‘Working for Chinese communists”

Right-wing tech billionaire Peter Thiel is accusing Pope Leo XIV of doing the work of the Chinese Communist Party with his criticisms of artificial intelligence.According to a Thursday report from CNN, Thiel told the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on Tuesday that the pope was inadvertently serving as a “Chinese communist agent” when he released a 42,000-word encyclical that called for strict regulation of AI, a technology that the pontiff said heightens the “risk of dehumanization” throughout the world.Thiel argued that this sort of thinking was dangerous, CNN reported, because it could result in the US losing the “race” to build more advanced AI to China. Because of this, Thiel continued, the pope is essentially “working for the Chinese communists” by trying to tap the brakes on AI development.Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, has long decried AI critics in harsh terms. Over the last year, he has been delivering a series of lectures in which he has said that opponents of AI development are working as agents for the Antichrist.Journalist Christopher Hale, who writes the Letters From Leo newsletter, noted on Friday that Thiel in the past has even speculated that Pope Leo could be “a manifestation of the Antichrist.”Thiel has said that he instructed Vice President JD Vance, a longtime political ally who received major funding from the tech billionaire for his 2022 Senate campaign, to ignore the pope’s moral guidance despite influencing Vance to convert to Catholicism, Hale added.“Thiel seeded the vice president’s Catholic faith,” Hale wrote, “and he now tells wealthy festival audiences that the leader of that faith works for a communist government.”In addition to his attacks on the pope, Thiel also warned about “a democratic-socialist takeover of the Democratic Party,” pointing to recent victories in New York and Colorado of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.Thiel said that this “takeover” would doom the US, arguing that “when the Democratic Party goes, this country is over,” according to CNN.The New York Times reported in May that Thiel has grown so concerned about the political situation in the US that he’s created a “foothold” for himself in Argentina, which is currently being governed by ideologically likeminded libertarian President Javier Milei.“Thiel, who has a history of collecting backup countries as he hedges his bets against the United States, is considering making Argentina another Plan B,” the Times reported. “Born in Germany and raised in the United States, he received citizenship in New Zealand in 2011, and applied for a passport in Malta in 2022.”

The Left's New Vision Is Running Into an Old Problem

In just the past two weeks, four insurgent left-wing candidates - including three socialists - have won Democratic congressional primaries. The latest victor, 29-year-old Melat Kiros, defeated 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette Tuesday night.

Socialist Surge: Far-left Democrats test national playbook after blue-city primary shocks

Democratic Socialists of America candidates are winning primaries nationwide, with races in Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida up next.

MS Now's Donny Deutsch MELTS DOWN over socialist takeover of the Democratic Party: 'It's a DISASTER!'

Liberal MS Now commentator Donny Deutsch lambasted the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party in comments on the progressive cable news network.The panel was discussing whether Democrats would be able to find their footing while the president is facing criticism over the Iran war and high inflation, when Deutsch went on a tirade about the party's focus.'Right now every Republican strategist is salivating on what these people have said in the past, and they're going to wallpaper with it.' "Well, Democrats have gone off the rails. ... What matters to people is affordability. And Democrats right now are focused on two things. They're focused on anti-Semitism and socialism," Deutsch said."Not all Democrats," host Stephanie Ruhle objected."Not all, but that's where the energy of the party is, when you look at the two candidates that got elected in the last week," he responded. "One of them talks about that there was not — that firebombing in Colorado was not anti-Semitic. I mean, would not acknowledge that, when it was a firebombing of people holding a vigil for hostages by Hamas."He was referring to Melat Kiros, who won the Democratic primary for Colorado's 1st Congressional District, and then cited Darializa Avila Chevalier, the winner of the primary in New York's 13th Congressional District."Another candidate in New York, who has been well documented, was at an October 8 rally, a pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian rally," Deutsch continued."This is ridiculous, and they're both running on anti-American, socialistic, 'Let's blow up — let's abolish ICE, let's abolish prisons, let's abolish everything, let's abolish the police.' It's insane," he added."And the Republicans are going to tar them with this. This is the problem. Even though they are a small sector of the party, right now every Republican strategist is salivating on what these people have said in the past, and they're going to wallpaper with it," Deutsch said. RELATED: 'They're animals': Trump UNLOADS on 'godless Communists' taking over Democratic Party "Democrats are going down a bad path. They're electing these democratic socialists," he concluded. "It's a disaster. No matter what you think of it, wherever your politics are, it's bad strategy."Video of Deutsch's comments were posted to social media, where they were widely circulated.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Bad News for the 'Disgruntled' Left - Felony Indictment Dropped in D.C. for Damage to Reflecting Pool

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Walz melts down over ‘cruel’ Supreme Court ruling on transgender treatments

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How Trump’s America 250 'pet projects' left small towns out in the cold

In Ohio, the Trumbull County Historical Society had ambitious plans for local celebrations of the United States' 250th anniversary. But they encountered a major obstacle thanks to cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) carried out earlier in President Donald Trump's second term. And on top of that, according to NOTUS reporter Anna Kramer, the president redirected Congress-approved funds from America 250 activities to "toward Trump's Freedom 250 pet projects.""While America 250 is now asking Congress for more money to fill a funding shortfall," Kramer explains in NOTUS, "Congress has already responded to last year's DOGE cuts by funding state humanities councils at their normal levels for the 2026 fiscal year. The Trump administration just hasn't dispersed those funds. As of June, the administration has only given the councils less than half of what Congress appropriated — and told them not to expect the rest, council leaders told NOTUS."Kramer adds, "Now, with the 250th anniversary just days away, the councils have been unable to fund anniversary projects. The Federation of State Humanities Councils, after a year of litigation against the Trump administration, just asked a federal judge in Oregon to declare that Trump is in violation of basic constitutional separation of powers rules by refusing to fully distribute what Congress intended."Trump, according to Kramer, "redirected tens of millions of dollars from the DOGE cuts toward" his "plans for a triumphal arch and a statuary garden of 'American heroes' in Washington D.C.""In the end," Kramer reports, "Trump's focus on the nation's landmark birthday made it harder for local groups across the country to plan their own celebratory projects."Meghan Reed, executive director of the Trumbull County Historical Society, is expressing her frustration. Reed told NOTUS, "There's certainly things that we could have done for America 250 if the funding was available. That just didn't work out how we thought it could have."Interviewed by NOTUS, Jessica Cyders — executive director of the Southeast Ohio History Center — said of the funding cuts, "It means that we are not able to do things that are extra, things that are bigger projects. A lot of humanities organizations would have had some incredible projects that none of us have been able to complete."According to Kramer, "local libraries and historical associations across the country" had to "abandon planning for ambitious history and civics initiatives" because the Trump administration "axed federal funding for state and local humanities projects last year."Rebecca Brown Asmo, executive director of Ohio Humanities, told NOTUS, "As the director of Ohio Humanities, I don't take any sort of position about those particular projects. But what I do think is important is that Americans have access to funding and have access to history and humanities experiences in their own communities. And we're missing that as a result of now a second year of this funding being held back. These are taxpayer dollars that are intended to go to local communities — and right now, they're being held back and funneled to projects in Washington D.C."