If anybody ever took the expression “faux it ‘til you make it” too actually, it’s Donald Trump. Trump has discovered his method into the White Home twice; principally lately, regardless of being a convicted felon with no prior political expertise, and as of late has clung to a joking-not-joking throughline about discovering a approach to make it a three-fer, Structure be damned. So, it ought to come as no shock that he thinks he’d be a improbable pope too.
On Tuesday, when asked by reporters who he thinks must be the successor to the lately deceased Pope Francis, Trump tossed off, “I’d wish to be pope. That’d be my primary selection.”
Neglect the truth that Trump isn’t a member of the clergy, or the Faculty of Cardinals, who will convene for a conclave to pick out their new chief starting Could 7—he’s not even Catholic. Although confirmed earlier in life into Presbyterianism, in 2020, Trump told the Religious News Service in an interview that he now identifies as a non-denominational Christian. After an assassination try in July 2024, Trump, already in style with Evangelical Christian voters, dialed up the spiritual rhetoric in his messaging. At his inauguration in January, he even mentioned that he was “saved by God to make America nice once more.”
When pressed, nevertheless, he did have one various suggestion for who ought to succeed Pope Francis. Type of. “No, I don’t know. I don’t have a desire,” Trump continued. “I’d say, we’ve got a cardinal that occurs to be out of a spot known as New York who is superb. So we’ll see what occurs.”
Presumably, he was referring to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who led the invocation at Trump’s inauguration. “Please, God bless America, please mend her each flaw,” Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, mentioned as he prayed for Trump at the start of his second time period.
Perhaps Trump was making an attempt to play coy by not mentioning Dolan by identify, or maybe he couldn’t bear in mind it and figured {that a} made-in-the-USA reply couldn’t fail. The world could by no means know.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, for one, appeared to cheerfully second Trump’s self-nomination on social media on Tuesday.
“I used to be excited to listen to that President Trump is open to the concept of being the following Pope,” Graham wrote on X (previously Twitter). “This would actually be a darkish horse candidate, however I’d ask the papal conclave and Catholic trustworthy to maintain an open thoughts about this risk!”
He continued: “The primary Pope-U.S. President mixture has many upsides. Expecting white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!”
