After tensions, Rubio meets the Pope | DW News

0:00 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has visited Pope Leo in Rome.

0:04 The meeting follows a public spat between the Pope

0:07 and US President Trump over the war in Iran.

0:10 Rubio's trip is widely seen or viewed as an effort to bridge that divide.

0:18 The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio puts his best diplomatic

0:22 foot forward as he seeks to reset Washington's relationship with the pontiff.

0:27 It follows a torid period of criticism between President Trump

0:30 and the first American pope principally over the US's war with Iran.

0:35 What to get someone who has everything?

0:37 I thought I basically said that uh the message of the church,

0:42 my message, the message of the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers.

0:47 I do not look at my role as being political or politician.

0:50 I don't want to get into a debate with him.

0:53 I don't think that the message of the gospel was meant

0:56 to be abused in the way that some people are doing,

1:01 enough of the idolatry of self and money,

1:04 enough of the display of power, enough of waring.

1:11 In recent months, the president has conducted prayer meetings

1:14 in the Oval Office with himself at the center,

1:18 called the Pope weak on crime on social media,

1:21 and hit out at the pontiff while speaking to the press.

1:25 He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toyed with a country

1:30 that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world.

1:34 I'm not I'm not a fan of Leo.

1:38 Later that same evening, the president posted this picture of himself,

1:43 widely interpreted as depicting himself as Jesus.

1:49 Trump denied this accusation and instead said he was supposed to be

1:52 a doctor before going on to once again attack Pope Leo.

1:58 Don't you apologize?

1:59 No, I don't because Pope Leo said things that are wrong.

2:03 uh he was very much against what I'm doing with re

2:06 with regard to Iran and you cannot have a nuclear Iran.

2:09 Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result.

2:12 You have hundreds of millions of people dead.

2:16 The US ambassador to the Holy Sea described

2:18 the conversation between the Pope and Rubio as frank.

2:22 But whether relations can truly be reset

2:25 now largely rest with the president and if

2:31 he can refrain from his critical outbursts

2:33 and late night posts depicting himself as the almighty.

2:38 And joining me now is David Gibson.

2:40 He's director of the center on religion and culture at form university.

2:43 He is one of America's leading observers of religion and politics.

2:48 Mr.

2:48 Gibson, it's good to have you with us.

2:50 Let me just start by getting your read on this.

2:52 Why is Secretary of State Marco Rubio why is he paying a visit to the Vatican?

2:57 Why is he meeting with the Pope?

3:00 It's damage control basically.

3:02 I mean after after his boss, President Trump went on the attack unprovoked

3:06 attack against uh Pope Leo with his comments.

3:10 Um it's been downhill for relations between the US and and the Vatican.

3:15 And you know why Donald Trump would do something like this?

3:19 No one can answer.

3:20 You'd need a a psychologist to answer that.

3:22 But the effects have been real and a bad at a time

3:26 when Donald Trump cannot afford to uh wage more unnecessary wars with anybody.

3:34 The Vatican says that this meeting was requested by Washington.

3:38 I mean, what does that tell us about the current

3:41 state of relations between the Trump administration and the Holy Sea?

3:46 Well, it it clearly shows that the Trump

3:49 administration wanted to come with an olive branch.

3:52 They they realized that they were getting they were not winning this fight.

3:57 They were losing on every even among their own base.

4:00 You have to understand, you know,

4:01 white Catholics are almost as supportive of Donald Trump

4:06 and MAGA as white evangelicals in the United States.

4:10 So losing the white, anything that erodess that white Catholic base

4:14 in the United States is politically dangerous,

4:18 very dangerous for the Trump administration.

4:20 So they needed to do something to reach out

4:23 to the Vatican and to try and calm the waters at least.

4:27 You know, you you talk about the Catholics in the United States.

4:30 Marco Rubio, he arrives not just as America's top diplomat,

4:34 but he's also a practicing Catholic himself.

4:37 How much does that matter in a meeting like this, do you think?

4:42 Well, it's good.

4:43 Um, it can that can cut both ways.

4:45 Uh, uh, the vice president JD Vance is a practicing Catholic and but he tends

4:52 to hold his Catholicism so tight that he uses it to argue with the pope.

4:58 Marco Rubio is a cradle Catholic.

5:00 JD Vance is a convert.

5:02 Interestingly, Marco Rubio is a cradle

5:05 Catholic from originally of Cuban extraction.

5:08 So, I think he has a, let's say,

5:09 a better visceral understanding of the Catholic

5:13 culture and diplomacy and how these things work.

5:18 And he's going there not to pick a fight

5:20 with the pope or to argue with the pope.

5:22 Um, he's a diplomat.

5:24 Um, so I think he has a better understanding of it.

5:27 It's interesting that in this whole past two weeks of Trump versus the Pope,

5:31 Rubio has not weighed in.

5:33 JD Vance has.

5:34 So Rubio is the one to send.

5:37 Rubio is the one to send.

5:39 Is Marco Rubio, in your opinion,

5:41 is he going just as America's top diplomat or is he

5:46 going there as a politician who we know has presidential um designs?

5:52 Does this make him look more presidential candidate-like?

5:58 I mean, is this grooming him to replace maybe Donald Trump?

6:04 Absolutely.

6:05 You cannot separate this visit or frankly anything

6:09 that's happening going to be happening in the next

6:12 two and three years leading up

6:13 to the 2028 presidential election from the personal ambitions.

6:19 Who's going to succeed Donald Trump?

6:21 And look, it's between two Catholics, Vice President J.

6:24 D.

6:24 Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

6:28 And uh this this this visit certainly burnishes

6:33 Rubio's credentials with Catholic voters in the United States.

6:38 Let me go back just to you know the the background for this meeting.

6:43 the Vatican's basically secretary of state cardinal um

6:47 Petro Parolene effectively what it's like the holy

6:51 seas top diplomat foreign minister if you will

6:55 he has called Trump's attacks on the pope

6:58 and he's used the word strange in Vatican

7:02 language how significant is that comment the use

7:05 of the word strange I mean it's not something that the the Vatican throws around

7:11 no and It's look, the Vatican has been around for centuries.

7:16 Vatican diplomacy has been around for centuries.

7:18 They're very good at this.

7:21 Donald Trump is such a an oddity.

7:25 Even the Vatican is at a loss for how to characterize this.

7:30 They want to talk in standard diplomatic language.

7:34 They want to speak in in ways that, you know,

7:39 of international law and international norms and a way

7:42 to calm the waters and to get things done.

7:45 So, they're really at a loss and they don't want to dignify what Trump is doing,

7:51 that kind of rhetoric.

7:53 They want to dismiss it.

7:54 They want to put things on a whole different level, which Marco Rubio does.

7:58 But again, you have to understand whatever comes

8:00 out of this meeting between Rubio and the Pope,

8:04 Donald Trump could blow it up with a post on Truth Social 5 minutes later.

8:10 Would you say that Pope Leo is particularly well equipped though to to deal

8:17 with President Trump by the simple fact that he is also an American?

8:23 Absolutely.

8:23 And there is no doubt.

8:24 One thing in in Trump's initial attack a couple of weeks ago,

8:27 he said Pope Leo owes his election to me,

8:31 uh I don't know what he meant by that, but in in some ways

8:33 I was at the V I was at the conclave last year year ago

8:37 uh that elected um uh Cardinal Prevost Chicago uh as as Pope Leo

8:44 and some of the uh some

8:45 of the cardinals especially from the Southern Hemisphere said,

8:48 "We want an American who can speak the same language to Trump,

8:53 who can stand up to Trump.

8:54 So there is a degree that the cardinals did want

8:57 someone who understands America and who can speak to Americans.

9:01 And with Pope Francis, the Argentine Pope,

9:04 a lot of American conservatives would say, "Oh, he's just he's a Latino.

9:09 He doesn't understand America and he just speaks off the cuff.

9:13 He just shoots his mouth off." You can't say that about Pope Leo.

9:18 Pop Leo is a very careful American who when he speaks says what he means.

9:25 May I ask you before we run out of time here if we

9:27 get beyond the the accusations and the maybe the personal animosity here.

9:32 Pope Leo has spoken repeatedly about peace, migration and moral responsibility.

9:38 Is this becoming more than a political disagreement?

9:42 I mean, is it now a deeper moral and theological

9:46 clash that we see between the the Pope and the president?

9:53 Yes, I think that's exactly right.

9:54 And I've I've written a piece recently about

9:57 what I call a kind of new Americanism.

9:59 This isn't just about personalities.

10:02 This a clash of personalities is not just about particular policies or this war.

10:07 This is a larger problem that's been emerging in the American

10:11 Catholic Church where they just don't disagree with the pope.

10:18 They disrespect the pope.

10:19 They don't just dissent.

10:21 They dismiss what the pope says.

10:24 And not just the pope, what Catholic teaching is.

10:26 Pope Leo is not just speaking as himself.

10:29 He's representing an entire Catholic tradition

10:32 and 1.4 billion Catholics around the world.

10:36 American Catholics don't realize that they're just 5% of the global

10:40 church and they're kind of putting themselves over and above everyone else.

10:46 And that's a real, as you say, theological problem that will last after

10:50 this Rubio visit and after Donald Trump.

10:54 Mr.

10:54 Gibson, we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today.

10:57 Fascinating getting your your take on this.

10:59 Thank you.