CNN’s resident polling expert has suggested that Donald Trump is “jealous” of Pope Leo XIV’s soaring approval rating as the president continues his feud with the leader of the Catholic Church.
On the cable channel’s News Central program Monday, chief data analyst Harry Enten presented polling data from March showing that Trump is nearly 50 points less popular than the Pope among the American public.
“You know, maybe President Trump is jealous of Pope Leo XIV, because it is a blowout. It is a blowout!” Enten said in his trademark excitable style.
He pointed to an NBC News poll last month showing that the Pope had +34 point net favorability rating with Americans, compared to Trump’s -12.
“It’s not even close,” said Enten. “Pope Leo XIV absolutely crushing President Trump… and I will note that Pope Leo was the most popular person tested by NBC News.
“I believe the president is making a humongous mistake going after the most popular guy in America.”
It comes amid an escalating spat between Trump and the supreme pontiff and after Trump’s threat to annihilate the “entire civilization” of Iran, which Pope Leo branded “truly unacceptable”.
In a late-night Truth Social tirade Sunday, Trump branded the Catholic leader “WEAK” on crime and “terrible” on foreign policy, demanding he “get his act together” and “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
But he drew fury from conservative Christians for also posting an apparently AI-generated picture which appeared to depict himself as Jesus healing the sick.
Trump later deleted the post, claiming he thought it merely showed him as “a doctor, making people better.”
Some reports have even claimed that U.S. officials threatened the Vatican with military force during a tense meeting in January.
In his segment Monday, Harry Enten noted that Trump had beaten Kamala Harris by 20 points among American Catholics in the November 2024 presidential election, according to a CNN exit poll.
Yet by late March, a Fox News poll put him on -4 points among the same group.
“President Trump crushed, crushed Kamala Harris,” Enten said. “But [now,] down he goes, down he goes, into the Dead Sea…
“The president has been struggling with Catholics. And I must say, in my expert opinion, I’m not quite sure that going after the Pope is the way to recover with Catholics.”
He added that Pope Leo’s views on the Iran war were “emblematic of Catholics in America”, citing a Fox News poll showing they were against U.S. military action in Iran by 10 points and against Trump’s conduct towards Iran by 20 points.
“The bottom line is this,” Enten said. “The Pope is emblematic of Catholics here in the United States. The Pope is far more popular with the American public than Trump is here in the United States…
“[He’s] losing a lot of ground, and this ain’t gonna help.”
