Marco Rubio meets Pope Leo at the Vatican
From Radio National Breakfast by ABC Australia
May 7, 2026 · 8 min
About this episode
Marco Rubio's meeting with Pope Leo at the Vatican aims to ease tensions between the pontiff and President Trump.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has met with Pope Leo at the Vatican, in what has been viewed as a bid by the White House to ease tensions between the pontiff and President Donald Trump. The meeting comes just days after President Trump unleashed new criticism of the first American pope, claiming his views on foreign policy were "endangering" Catholics and that the Pope was quote "fine" with Iran having a nuclear weapon – Pope Leo quickly dismissed this as untrue. The Vatican has issued a statement saying the two had "exchanged views" on the world situation and spoke about "the need to work tirelessly in favour of peace." GUEST: Francis X Rocca, Vatican Editor of EWTN News PRODUCER: Pip Cook
People in this episode
Guest: Francis X Rocca
Topics covered
- US politics
- Vatican relations
- Pope and President
- international diplomacy
- peace efforts
Keywords
- Marco Rubio
- Pope Leo
- Donald Trump
- Vatican
- peace
- foreign policy
- EWTN News
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Vatican, EWTN News, White House
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