Secretary of State Marco Rubio found himself diplomatically threading the needle between the White House and the Vatican.
Rubio, 54, appeared to shrug and give a mocking smile when asked whether he had urged President Donald Trump, 79, to stop criticizing the pope following his “cordial” meeting with the pontiff on Thursday.
“Why would I tell you what I’m gonna recommend to the president?” Rubio said during a press conference on Friday, adding that “the president of the United States is always going to act in what’s in the best interest of the United States.”
The secretary’s meeting at the Vatican came as Trump has escalated his largely one-sided feud with the first American pope, saying he was “endangering a lot of Catholics” by not speaking out about the war in Iran and calling the head of the Catholic Church “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” on Truth Social.
In response to the president’s comments, Pope Leo told reporters, “If someone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let him do so truthfully,” adding that the Church has spoken out against nuclear weapons and that he hopes he is “listened to for the value of the words of God.”
Rubio, who is a practicing Catholic, also sidestepped a question about whether he had asked the head of the church he belongs to to stop criticizing the U.S. war with Iran.
“I’m not gonna discuss what I talked about with the pope,” Rubio told reporters on Friday.
Rubio’s avoidant response comes after Trump told reporters that he had instructed the secretary to “tell the pope very nicely, very respectfully, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
In a media insight into the first meeting between the pope and a Trump Cabinet official in nearly a year, Rubio appeared to leave the pontiff momentarily speechless as he presented the baseball-loving pope with a small crystal American football.
A statement issued by the Vatican following the meeting described the conversation as “an exchange of views regarding the regional and international situation, with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations.”
The pope, who has repeatedly called for peace through diplomacy, also offered the secretary a pen made from olive wood, subtly noting that the olive branch is a symbol of peace.
Yet on Friday, tensions appeared to continue as Rubio met with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and conveyed U.S. dissatisfaction over Italy’s refusal to support the war on Iran.
Meloni, once considered one of the European leaders with the closest conservative ties to the Trump administration, has seen relations become strained following Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo, which she described as “unacceptable.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the State Department for comment.
