Donald Trump seems to believe he deserves credit for the election of the first American-born pope.
In a post on his Truth Social app Sunday Trump slammed ABC News’ Martha Raddatz who said he had nothing to do with the Conclave process that selected Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost to be the next pope.
“So funny to watch old timer Martha Raditz on ABC Fake News (the Slopadopolus show!) this morning, blurt out that, effectively, Pope Leo’s selection had nothing to do with Donald Trump,” Trump wrote. “It came out of nowhere, but it was on her Trump Deranged Mind.”
“Remember, I did WIN the Catholic Vote, by a lot!” Trump added.
Trump appeared to be reacting to a discussion on ABC’s This Week during which the network’s senior national correspondent Terry Moran said that according to his sources in the Vatican, Trump was not a factor in the cardinals’ decision making process.
“The question that we had was, ‘How much did the American moment with President Trump matter?’” Moran asked. “They’re telling us not at all. It was [Prevost] that mattered.”
“That’s what we’ve been hearing this morning. It was him,” Raddatz responded.
After Pope Leo XIV’s selection last week, Robert Barron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester in Minnesota, who spoke with cardinals tasked with selecting a new pope, quoted the late Cardinal George explaining when an American would be selected to lead the Catholic church
“Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: ‘Look, until America goes into political decline, there won’t be an American pope,'” Barron told CBS News.
