Will Rubio’s meeting with the Pope mark another diplomatic flop for Trump?

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, will meet Pope Leo at the Vatican’s apostolic palace on 7 May. The meeting address the tense and fractured relationship between the Pope and the hawkish US administration.

Pope Leo vs Trump administration

This intention to mend bridges follows a very public fallout, after Trump provoked an illegal war of aggression against Iran.

Pope Leo has made no efforts to hide his disagreement with the US, criticising ‘tyrant’ leaders spending billions on war. As we know too well, nothing good can come from illegal wars which result in the mass murder of civilians, including women and children.

Like every other US diplomatic effort, US strong-arming has failed to sway the Pope. Unless Trump and his might-is-right team change tack, Rubio’s visit later this week is likely to be another diplomatic flop.

NEW: In a major diplomatic snub to JD Vance, Donald Trump is sending Marco Rubio solo on Thursday to meet with Pope Leo XIV.

This comes as Rubio’s star is rising and Vance’s allies are privately accusing the Vatican of coordinating with American journalists and operatives to…

— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) May 4, 2026

Military might doesn’t impress the Pope

The Pope has made it clear as long as it remains beholden to the Trump administration, he is unlikely to visit the US. His position against the trigger-happy US President is receiving widespread support and recognition.

Our own Alex/Rose Cocker wrote at the time:

Pope Leo became the first pope to be born in the US after his appointment in 2025. Since then, he has been a vocal critic of Trump’s vicious warmongering and immigration policies. In particular, both his January and Easter addresses called for peace and criticized warlike states.

In response, the Trump administration has reportedly told the church that it has the military power to do “whatever it wants”. Reports also allege that one US official made reference to the use of force against the papacy itself.

It seems the MAGA administration have recognised that threatening to bomb the leader of the Catholic Church isn’t likely to go down well. Now it seems Trump, with ‘Catholic’ Rubio’s state visit, is giving diplomacy another go.

However, diplomacy has hardly been a success for the hawks. Talks with Iran — intended to find a way to de-escalate from violent and genocidal threats — collapsed almost as soon as they began.

Critics suggest deals of this kind rarely, if ever, conclude within two-weeks. This highlights Trump’s delusional expectations about the pace of statecraft.

If anything, recent comments by Trump suggest he’s lining up another sustained military campaign against Iran, which is unlikely to see a change in rhetoric from Pope Leo.

Officially the US is claiming Project Freedom is a "defensive mission" to support third party shipping.

But Trump says Iran has "not yet paid a big enough price" – giving the game away that it's really designed to create a pretext for resuming air strikes. https://t.co/mxVmst3UYe

— Steve Howell (@FromSteveHowell) May 4, 2026

Attempting to hoodwink the Pope?

It seems to us like another hoodwinking attempt — don’t forget, the US began dropping bombs on Iran when they were at the negotiating table:

Trump on Iran – "They are not fools; they are very smart, actually, in a certain way. They are great negotiators"

He bombed them while they were at the negotiating table. Now he's losing and calling them smart negotiators, praying they'll give him a deal he can pretend win pic.twitter.com/CMSmtsIdJt

— Ounka (@OunkaOnX) March 26, 2026

Maybe he can’t even remember what he decided the day before, blindly throwing around statements in a typical display gratuitous power.

Nevertheless, digital media has made it easier to keep track of Trump’s woeful double-speak:

On Saturday a journalist asked Trump, "Last night you said we might be better off not making a deal with Iran." Trump denied saying it. @ddale8 at CNN fact checked it proving Trump had made the remark. I put the two video clips together. Dale and the journalist were correct. pic.twitter.com/BF9QMVfais

— Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) May 4, 2026

We’ll soon find out, as it never takes long for the US administration to speak its true intentions and expose its sinister, corrupt agendas.

Time will tell whether they manage to hoodwink the Pope long enough before bombs start raining down on Iran.

Featured image via the Canary