Pope Leo XIV met with former Barack Obama senior advisor and political strategist David Axelrod on April 9 in what appears to be more than just a private papal audience for one of the Pope's flock.
Axelrod is not Catholic or Christian. In fact, even though Axelrod was raised in a conservative Jewish household, he has said that while he has felt a “real attachment” to the country of Israel, religious observance is not his thing. In 2017, he said, “Like many of my peers, I pushed back from religion because it was so compulsory; something you had to do rather than something that could enrich your life.”
So why would a non-religious, senior Obama advisor and all-around leftist be meeting with the Pope? And why now?
Was this a business meeting? Would it have anything to do with the increasingly political agitation coming from the pope and targeting the Trump administration?
In this clip, he all but calls President Donald Trump a war criminal without coming right out and saying it. While it feels like he's practically reading from a Democrat talking points sheet, he clearly knows where the line is, and he’s running right up to it.
⛪️ April 7 | Pope Leo calls for all to reject war, warns of economic and energy crises
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 7, 2026
The Pope issued a direct appeal from Castel Gandolfo, calling on Americans and citizens of all countries to “reject war” and violence.

Addressing the ongoing United States and Israel’s war… https://t.co/XEGtBotlnj pic.twitter.com/ya4U4q15fr
In February, the pope rejected Trump’s invitation to be on the new Board of Peace.
Vatican Reveals Whether Pope Will Serve On Trump's Board Of Peace | Andi Shae Napier, The Daily Caller
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) February 18, 2026
Pope Leo XIV has declined President Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace for Gaza, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, announced Tuesday.
The… pic.twitter.com/t7cLu8cfKX
Of course, the Trump administration is not taking this lying down.
Karoline Leavitt FIRES BACK at woke Pope Leo’s underhanded swipe at the Trump administration for invoking God during the Iran conflict.
— Overton (@overton_news) March 30, 2026
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our military leaders or with the president calling on the American people to pray for our service… pic.twitter.com/xCNA3ihzpb
In February, Roman Catholic border czar Tom Homan had some words of his own in response to the Vatican’s attacks on America, attempting to enforce its own border policies and laws.
🚨 JUST IN: Tom Homan responds to Pope Leo opposing Trump's deportations
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 25, 2026
"If we jumped the wall at the Vatican, penalties are MUCH harder than in America."
"Women get r*ped on the journey here...I'd be happy to sit down with him and explain it to him." 🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/QKfvYJsiKw
Now, someone has sparked and spread rumors that the Pentagon had an unsavory meeting with the Vatican in January, where reports are that Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby was said to have “summoned” Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. The story then goes that Colby lectured Pierre behind closed doors, essentially telling the Vatican to get on board with Trump or there could be consequences. The rumors say that Colby told Pierre that “the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” and that “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
The left is interpreting this as not only a tense meeting, but that the Trump administration practically delivered a veiled threat of violence against the Vatican.
Once a story gets to this level, we’re in a very dark place. Either it’s true or not.
Given who’s making a big deal out of it and who is not, it feels a whole lot like one of Nancy Pelosi’s favorite tactics — the “wrap-up smear.” That’s where you make up a story and then get the media to run with the story. Next, you use the fact that the media ran the fake story as “proof” that your enemy is indeed guilty of the thing you made up in the first place.
We’re at the phase where the usual suspects on the left are running with the story. Already, however, there’s a problem with that. The Pentagon denies it happened, at least in the way it’s been reported. Military.com and many other news organizations are now reporting it didn’t quite go down that way.
The Pentagon and White House are refuting reports that high-level U.S. defense officials told Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican to take the United States’ ‘side’ when it comes to matters of military influence and Western Hemisphere oversight, Military.com wrote.
For its part, the Vatican has been silent, which is par for the course with how the church handles its public relations. What’s a few days of confusion over a news story that the Vatican may or may not at some point decide to clarify? In this case, staying silent works for the Vatican.
All of this brings us to that meeting between the non-Christian, non-religious Axelrod and the pope, who’s supposed to be non-political, but he is political.
Could it have something to do with the steep financial impact Trump’s border policies and immigration enforcement are having on the church’s bottom line? The church and its affiliates are missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars as zero illegal aliens now cross the border into the U.S.
Whatever the case, it’s clear that the pope doesn’t like Trump, and that would make him an ally of Axelrod’s by default.
What do you think they talked about? Axelrod is a known Democrat strategist, and a very good one. If I were the pope and I had an “axe” to grind with Trump, Axelrod would probably be on my short list of people to bring in for some strategic counsel and planning. He knows everyone who can help the Vatican in America. He’s connected to every leftist that matters, and it’s emerging that all of this seems to matter to the Vatican.
If I were the pope, and I had a heavy case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that the Pope seems to have, here are some questions I’d be asking Axelrod:
- If you were in my position, what would you be doing? What would you advise?
- I don’t want it to look like I’m meddling in American politics, but I really want Trump to lose in the midterms. How can I meddle without it looking like I'm meddling?
- How can I leverage my 53 million Catholics in America to apply pressure on Trump?
- What should I not be doing right now?
- Who do you know who can help me?
- What’s your suggested plan of action?
- How can I make sure the public hears certain things and sees things a certain way without it coming back on the church?
I’m not saying this is what I would want to do if it were me. I’m saying that these are the kinds of questions the Vatican, as its hierarchy is currently constituted, might consider discussing with Axelrod. Every one of these questions is in keeping with the current opaque culture of church leadership.
Naïve reporters or reporters who know better, but who are trying to pretend they don’t see the obvious, are speculating that the reason for the meeting is to enable Obama to meet the pope before Trump does, as though Axelrod is some sort of social liaison. He’s not.
Other reporters are wondering if it’s just this Chicago connection that Obama and the pope share, since both have called Chicago their hometown. And that would necessitate a private audience between Axelrod and the pope — why? If any of this sort of narrative takes hold, it would be a massive, intentional head-fake to distract the public from what could really be going on.
I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re hearing unconfirmed rumors of that meeting between the Pentagon and the Vatican’s ambassador right now. Nothing is an accident or a coincidence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Vatican has chosen to let those rumors fester unconfirmed or unrefuted. If this is indeed a smear of the Trump administration, at some point, when the damage has been done, I’d watch for the Vatican to finally clarify the story and refute the inaccuracies in it - but only when it's in the Vatican's best interest to do so.
All of that said, as with anything when the Vatican is involved, we probably only know 10% of the story.
Meanwhile, I’m just going to watch from this distance and see how it plays out. I’m not going to take on face value any of this. Now that I know Axelrod is in the mix, I’m going to be actively watching for new narratives surrounding the Vatican, which will magically help the Democrats and hurt Trump for the remainder of this year, through the midterms.
What do you think Axelrod and the Pope talked about? Something tells me the church will be much better at sealing the leaks from this meeting than it was at trying to prevent any rumors after that January Pentagon meeting.
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