Pope Doubles Down on Message That Made Pentagon Threaten Him

Pope Leo XIV has issued another holy missive against Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

“God does not bless any conflict,” wrote the official X account for the Chicago-born pontiff on Friday. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

“Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples,” he continued.

The message is nothing unusual out of the Vatican, except for its timing. Earlier this week, reports emerged that the Pentagon had threatened an ambassador from the Holy See in January, days after the pope made similar antiwar remarks during his State of the World address.

That month, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby reportedly summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon. The atmosphere of the occasion was anything but friendly: Pentagon officials openly threatened the religious ambassador, asserting that the Catholic Church needed to get behind the Trump administration’s global whims due to America’s military prowess.

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the fourteenth century when the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death, and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon.

The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo canceled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported independent journalist Christopher Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

The Vatican also rejected the White House’s invitation to host the pope for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4.

This is the pope’s second clear snub to Trump just this week. Leo met with Obama adviser David Axelrod Thursday morning, a major step toward getting the pope and the forty-fourth president in a room together. Trump has yet to meet the pope.

The Trump administration is warning staffers not to bet on world events in futures markets.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House Management Office sent out a staff-wide email on March 24 telling administration employees not to engage in the practice following President Donald Trump’s announcement the previous day that he was pausing strikes against Iran.

The email was likely prompted by the rise in suspicious wagers and investments being made just before Trump announces major policy decisions. Only 15 minutes before Trump announced the pause in bombing Iran, $760 million in oil futures contracts was traded in under two minutes.

Three accounts in the prediction market Polymarket correctly bet on the timing of the Iran war ceasefire earlier this week, netting over $600,000. One of those accounts, with a 93 percent accuracy rate, was able to profit by betting on when U.S. and Israeli airstrikes would occur in 2024, 2025, and 2026.

The timing of those bets raises the question of whether one of Trump’s staffers or associates is using insider information for profit. Online prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket allow their customers to bet on everything from political events to sports, and suspicious bets have been going on for months.

In January, one trader, who had only created their account in December, made $400,000 by betting that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be removed from power less than five hours before it actually happened. Israel arrested and charged two people, including a military reservist, in February for allegedly using classified information to make bets on Polymarket.

Insider trading in the White House is a disturbing phenomenon, made worse by Trump’s embrace of corruption as president and because it’s an even more perverse form of war profiteering. It extends further than Polymarket or Kalshi, which are problematic in their own right, and could go all the way to the presidential Cabinet, as a broker for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth allegedly tried to invest millions of dollars in defense companies just before the U.S. began bombing Iran. One wonders if Trump himself is also engaged in insider trading, or if his corrupt Department of Justice even takes the issue seriously.

Donald Trump just drove a wedge into the MAGA movement.

The president reamed out several of his longtime acolytes Thursday, smearing ex-Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, as well as far-right influencers Candace Owens and Alex Jones. The quartet had each issued their own condemnation of Trump’s warmongering rhetoric, slamming the president’s various promises to completely annihilate Iran as vile and unpresidential.

And for once, Trump’s base was not willing to back him up in this fight. Instead, droves of MAGA supporters seemed shocked by the president’s sudden turn on his own political disciples, writing their own critiques of the president’s behavior under one of his Truth Social rants.

“Trump just going against everyone that fought for him to win, just because of the Epstein files and being at war with Iran for Israel,” wrote a Truth Social user called Deportation News. “You had so much potential, Trump. Voted for you all three times, and I feel so betrayed.”

“LOST MY SUPPORT,” responded user Mark Winslow.

“As of last week, they’ve done nothing but make excuses for your behavior and you think they’re the enemy??? They are why I am a triple Trumper!” posted Misty. “Whoever is telling you this is very wrong!!!! They have been trying to tell you how a large percentage of Americans see things... I was confident that you knew what you were doing but this is truly SCARY.”

The president posted 482 words to his Truth Social account Thursday afternoon, complaining that the four conservative commentators had been “fighting” him “for years” because of their “low IQs.” Trump further claimed that the MAGA-aligned media personalities were “stupid people” and that they “don’t have what it takes.” He also mentioned that he believed Owens was less attractive than the first lady of France, Brigitte Macron, who has sued the far-right podcaster over her repeated claims that Macron is transgender.

But the mouthy tirade only seemed to inspire Trump’s voters to lose respect for him. In his Truth Social replies, supporters referred to Trump’s missive as “childish,” “rambling,” and “pathetic.”

“What am I am hearing is your ego is so fragile you think anyone who questions any of your decisions is a low IQ person,” wrote Truth Social user shannstine. “Sir, statements like this say far more about you than them.”

“You’re the terrorist that kills people for politics,” wrote user RealTedFrancis.

“They’re fighting you because you sold us out,” posted another user on the platform, PapaSteve72. “We aren’t getting anything we voted for. No DOGE cuts, no mass deportations, no fraud and abuse getting cut, no arrests of pedofiles and traitors, and a brand new war nobody wanted and in fact voted explicitly against. You are an absolute failure and pathetic loser and I am so sorry I voted for you 3 times. I will never be tricked like this again. I’ve learned my lesson. Fuck you asshole!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly convinced President Donald Trump not to include Lebanon in America’s ceasefire deal with Iran—even though the U.S. agreed to stop the bombing there.

Trump was initially told that the ceasefire would apply to the entire Middle East region, including Lebanon, multiple diplomatic sources told CBS News Thursday.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, who helped mediate the plan, announced on X Tuesday that the U.S. and Iran had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere.” Lebanon was even included in the version of the deal originally circulated by the Trump administration.

Trump then abruptly changed his position on Lebanon following a phone call with Netanyahu, CBS News reported. Israel has waged an escalating military campaign in Lebanon using heavy munitions on densely populated areas, killing hundreds of civilians in its pursuit of Hezbollah. On Thursday, Netanyahu insisted that there was no ceasefire in Lebanon, as Israel launched a fresh round of strikes.

The Trump administration has resorted to a sort of collective amnesia about the whole thing. Vice President JD Vance told reporters Wednesday that he believed there’d been a “legitimate misunderstanding” about the terms of the ceasefire. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted earlier that day that all parties were aware that a ceasefire in Lebanon was not included in the deal.

A State Department official told CBS News that the U.S. will lead diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon. It’s not hard to guess how that could go. When the U.S. supposedly mediated the end of Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza, the Trump administration turned it into a lucrative real estate deal, while letting Israel continue its deadly strikes, oppression, and violent land grabs in the West Bank.

Trump caving to Netanyahu threatens to upend the fragile ceasefire deal that Iran now claims the U.S. is violating by allowing Israel to continue strikes in Lebanon. Iranian media said that Tehran would continue to suspend traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and was considering pulling out of the deal with Washington altogether.

Inflation has hit record highs in the U.S. thanks primarily to the war President Trump and Israel started on Iran. 

The most recent consumer price index report reveals inflation rose by 3.3 percent in March from one year ago, with energy prices being hit particularly hard. Gas prices went up a record 21.2 percent in just one month, and energy prices rose 10.9 percent. 

Prices overall are up 0.9 percent through March, the biggest monthly spike since 2022. 

Meanwhile, the American Automobile Association reports that gas costs nearly 40 percent more than it did since the war began in February, and Americans are paying an average of $4.15 per gallon. All because Trump listened to war hawks telling him to bomb Iran, leading Iran to close one of the most vital trading routes in the world, and causing you personally to spend more of your income to fill up your tank.