Pope's attacks on Trump ramped up days after meeting with longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod

President Trump and Pope Leo.

The feud between Pope Leo and President Trump escalated up in the days after a longtime adviser to former President Obama visited with the pope at the Vatican last week, leading some to suggest that the new attacks against Trump coming from the pontiff as well as other Catholic leaders is a choreographed stunt ahead of the 2026 midterm elections aimed at splintering the Catholic vote.

Axelrod's meeting with Pope Leo has fueled speculation that a papal meeting with former President Obama is ahead in the not-too-distant future. Axelrod, in a post on X, denied that the meeting was meant to lay the groundwork for a sit-down between Obama and Leo, but didn't deny that it was meant to stir up political attacks on Trump. The meeting "was scheduled months ago and unrelated to any prospective meeting with President Obama," Axelrod said. Although, as CBS News noted, Obama remarked during a recent podcast appearance that he was "looking forward to meeting" Pope Leo. 

However, others see the meeting as an agenda-driven strategy to splinter the Catholic vote ahead of the midterm elections.

"This is 100 percent political," Hal Lambert, founder and CEO of Point Bridge Capital, said during a roundtable discussion on CNN Monday evening. "All of a sudden now Pope Leo is out attacking Trump and the policies of the United States and Israel," Lambert said, suggesting Democrats are coordinating an effort to sway Catholic voters away from Trump. "You have three cardinals come out today attacking immigration policy," Lambert continued, questioning why the pope was meeting with the chief political strategist for Obama during his campaigns. 

Lambert was referring to three Catholic cardinals who appeared Sunday on 60 Minutes and criticized the Trump administration's immigration policies, saying ICE agents "actually violate other guarantees of our Constitution and Bill of Rights." The trio of cardinals also blasted the war with Iran as "unjust."

One of the cardinals appeared on CNN Monday night to continue the political attacks on Trump. Cardinal Robert McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., slammed Trump for posting a photo on social media that portrayed the president as a Jesus Christ-like figure, telling Anderson Cooper that Trump was guilty of "crossing a line."

During an impromptu discussion with reporters at the White House Monday, Trump was asked if he was planning to apologize to Pope Leo, the first-ever American pontiff. "No, I don't," Trump replied. "Because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I'm doing with regard to Iran." Trump also suggested Pope Leo should stay out of politics, adding, "I'm just responding to Pope Leo."

Below, watch a clip from the discussion on CNN.