POPE LEO SWATS AWAY TRUMP’S BLASPHEMOUS MELTDOWN. Pope Leo XIV, the first pope born in the United States, showed off his Chicago roots April 13 by refusing to stoop to President Donald Trump’s level after Trump attacked the pontiff in an unhinged late-night social media frenzy, Oliver Willis noted at Daily.Kos.com (4/13).
“I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for,” Leo told reporters.
The pope has repeatedly denounced Trump’s war in Iran, rooting his criticism in the Bible’s opposition to killing and unjust war. Previously, Pope Leo noted, “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” He has also condemned “absurd and inhuman violence” and “the blasphemy of war.”
Leo’s latest rebuke of Trump came after the president posted a 334-word screed on his Truth Social account on Sunday, April 12, attacking the pope as “WEAK on Crime.”
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country,” Trump fumed.
He added, “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”
Trump’s post was followed up with another featuring an apparently AI-generated image of Trump depicted as Jesus Christ, healing a man with his touch.
The Bible defines blasphemy—one of the most serious crimes in the Christian faith—as the promotion of a false doctrine and leading Christians away from following the teachings of God and Jesus.
Trump’s decision to depict himself as a god-like figure also signals that Trump’s mental state makes him unfit to lead the country. Several Democrats have called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked and for Trump to be removed from office, citing his inability to execute his position.
Trump’s post about the pope was condemned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, the conference’s president, said in a statement. “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”
Trump’s missive also drew a statement from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who wrote on X in Persian, “Your Excellency Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex), on behalf of the great nation of Iran, I condemn the insult to Your Excellency and declare that the desecration of Jesus (peace be upon him), the Prophet of peace and brotherhood, is unacceptable to any free person. I wish glory for you from Allah.”
Trump’s attack on the pope may have been triggered by a segment that aired on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, April 12. In the segment, Catholic bishops aired their criticisms of Trump echoing the Pope’s statements, particularly on immigration and the war.
Speaking about the attack on Iran, Cardinal Robert McElroy told the outlet, “In the Catholic teaching this is not a just war.”
Reacting to the controversy, CNN data analyst Harry Enten speculated on X, “Maybe Trump’s jealous of the Pope? ... It’s a blowout favoring the Pope in terms of popularity in America. The Pope’s net popularity rating: +34 pt. Trump: -12 pt.”
Enten also noted that among Catholics who were polled, a majority agreed with the pope in opposing the war.
While Trump has long had the support of conservative Christian voters, his grip on Christian doctrine has been shaky, at best. Trump infamously referred to the Bible verse Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians,” and has hawked a tacky Trump-branded Bible and other schlocky trinkets.
Trying to bait the leader of Catholicism into an online flame war has failed spectacularly, but it’s right in line with Trump’s ever-growing list of screwups.
‘DESIGNED TO BACKFIRE’: TRUMP SLAMMED FOR CLOSURE OF HORMUZ STRAIT AS IRAN TALKS FALTER. US President Donald Trump on April 12 announced a military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as Vice President JD Vance’s negotiating team failed to gain the trust of their Iranian counterparts, who have been burned by the United States before and are loath to surrender sovereignty over their nuclear program, Brett Wilkins noted at CommonDreams.org (4/12).
Trump announced in an early morning post on his Truth Social network that, “effective immediately,” the Strait of Hormuz—which was open before the president launched his illegal war of choice—would be closed to all shipping. Around 20% of the world’s oil passed through the waterway before the war.
“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran,” the president continued, referring to one of the concessions reportedly in the cease-fire agreement with Iran that he approved last week. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
“Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION,” Trump added. “They want money and, more importantly, they want Nuclear. Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
Responding to Trump’s post, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said: “So get this. Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Blow up the world economy to punish Iran. Make sense?”
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, also took to social media, writing that “a blockade is an act of war, so Trump is announcing he will reenter the US into a war has been illegal under domestic and international law and has been disastrous for US interests, regional security, and the people of Iran.”
In a social media post, journalist Séamus Malekafzali said: “I have legitimately never heard of a more insane, designed-to-backfire policy under this administration; maybe ever. Not only attempting to blockade Iranian ships, but ANY ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the toll.”
While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended a UFC match in Miami, Vance was left with the task of marathon negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance told reporters after the talks. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on Feb. 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump’s—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran gave its assurance that it would not build nukes in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it signed in 2015 during the presidency of Barack Obama. Trump unilaterally scrapped the agreement, which was also called the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term despite—some say because of—Iran’s full compliance.
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf blamed the US for the breakdown in talks.
“My colleagues on the Iranian delegation Minaab168 raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a social media post. The Iranian delegation was named after the town where 168 children and staff at an elementary school were massacred in a US cruise missile strike on the first day of the war.
“Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” Ghalibaf explained.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a “peace deal is within our reach,” prompting Iranian officials and others to accuse the Americans of acting in bad faith. Similar accusations were leveled when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing nuclear negotiations.
“America has understood our logic and principles,” said Ghalibaf, “and now it’s time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not?”
HUNGARIAN VOTERS END 16 STRAIGHT YEARS OF ORBAN’S FAR-RIGHT RULE. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán April 12 conceded defeat to conservative lawmaker Peter Magyar in parliamentary elections that ended 16 years of increasingly authoritarian Christian nationalist rule amid overt interference from the Trump administration and alleged covert meddling by Russia, Brett Wilkins noted at CommonDreams.org (4/12).
“The election result is not final yet, but it is understandable and clear,” Orbán said. “The election result is painful for us, but clear. The responsibility and possibility of governing was not given to us. I have congratulated the winner.”
“We will serve our country and the Hungarian nation from the opposition,” he added.
Magyar, who leads the socially conservative but democratic Tisza Party, said on social media that “just now, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has congratulated me on our victory in a phone call.”
Tisza is projected to win 135 seats in the 199-seat Országgyulés, or Parliament, with nearly half of all votes counted, according to the national election office. Orbán’s Fidesz party is projected to control 57 seats.
Magyar had promised that “step by step, brick by brick, we are taking back our homeland and building a new country, a sovereign, modern, European Hungary.”
Domestic and international critics have long accused Orbán of systematically eroding Hungary’s democratic institutions, tightening his grip over the country’s political system, and consolidating control over much of the media to strengthen Fidesz’s rule.
After serving a single term as prime minister from 1998-2002, Orbán was elected again in 2010 and served four consecutive terms, thanks to passage by Fidesz-led lawmakers of the so-called “Fundamental Law” and other illiberal measures.
Human rights deteriorated markedly during Orbán’s tenure, especially for LGBTQ+ people, migrants, women, and Roma. The European Union has withheld billions of dollars in funding in response.
EU leaders have condemned Orbán’s rule, calling his government a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.” Orbán describes it as “illiberal democracy,” while touting its universal appeal to international conservatives, including US President Donald Trump.
European leaders also bristled at Orban’s warm personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although the Hungarian leader did condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and voted along with the rest of the 27-nation EU to impose economic sanctions on Moscow.
Russia is accused of trying to influence the outcome of the election in favor of Fidesz via a coordinated online disinformation campaign. At a massive election eve rally and concert in Budapest, thousands of attendees chanted in unison, “Russians go home!”
Trump and senior members of his administration had openly backed Orbán, with the president promising “to use the full economic might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s economy” if the prime minister was reelected.
US Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest the week before the election to campaign for Orbán. While decrying what he called “disgraceful” interference by the EU—of which Hungary is a member—Vance added that he wanted to “help as much as I can possibly help” to secure Orbán’s reelection.
Orbán has accused Ukraine of election interference, although he has provided no evidence supporting his claim.
Responding to alleged foreign meddling, Magyar said on social media that “this is our country.”
“Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels—it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares,” he insisted.
Numerous world leaders congratulated Magyar.
“Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media. “Hungary has chosen Europe. Europe has always chosen Hungary. Together, we are stronger. A country reclaims its European path. The Union grows stronger.”
TRUMP’S MILITARY MURDERS 5 MORE PEOPLE IN ‘LAWLESS’ BOAT BOMBING. The United States military has killed five more people suspected of drug smuggling in the latest boat bombing operation that many international law experts consider to be acts of murder, Brad Reed noted at CommonDreams.org (4/13).
In an April 13 social media post, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced it had “conducted two lethal kinetic strikes on two vessels” that it had deemed to be run by “designated terrorist organizations.” As with the dozens of other boat bombings the Trump administration has conducted since last September, the military did not provide evidence that the vessels were involved in drug trafficking.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” SOUTHCOM said. “Two male narco-terrorists were killed, and one narco-terrorist survived the first strike. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during the second strike.”
SOUTHCOM said that it had alerted the US Coast Guard to conduct a search and rescue operation of the lone survivor of the two strikes, although it provided no further details.
According to NPR, the US has now killed at least 168 people with its strikes on suspected drug boats, which began in September and have since continued despite being denounced by human rights organizations such as Human Rights and Amnesty International.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, took note of the latest boat strike by remarking, “The lawless killing spree at sea continues.”
A coalition of rights organizations led by the ACLU last year sued the Trump administration to demand it release documents that provide legal justification for its boat-bombing campaign.
The groups said that the Trump administration’s rationales for the strikes deserve special scrutiny because their justification hinges on claims that the US is in an “armed conflict” with international drug cartels akin to past conflicts between the US government and terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda.
Before President Trump’s Pentagon began conducting the lethal boat strikes last year, drug trafficking in international waters was treated as a criminal offense, with law enforcement agencies and the US Coast Guard intercepting boats suspected of carrying drugs and arresting suspects.
Trump’s bombings of boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been called “extrajudicial killings” by advocacy groups including Amnesty International.
JUDGE TOSSES TRUMP’S $10 BILLION WALL STREET JOURNAL SUIT OVER EPSTEIN REPORTING. A Florida-based federal judge on April 13 dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on a “bawdy” birthday letter the Republican allegedly gave to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Jessica Corbett noted at CommonDreams.org (4/13).
Trump denies writing the letter or drawing the outline of a naked woman around the text. He sued the journalists behind the July report—Joseph Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar—and the newspaper, plus its parent company News Corp, chief executive Robert Thomson, and founder Rupert Murdoch.
The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subsequently subpoenaed the Epstein estate for all materials that now-imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly compiled for the dead financier’s birthday book, including the letter attributed to Trump—and in September, the panel published those documents online.
US District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found that Trump’s “complaint fails to adequately allege actual malice.” However, Gayles also gave Trump the opportunity to amend his filing within the next two weeks.
While The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the president intends to continue the case.
“President Trump will follow Judge Gayles’ ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants,” the spokesperson said. “The president will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People.”
CNN noted that despite the legal battle, “the 95-year-old Murdoch has maintained a cozy if complicated relationship with the president, including multiple meetings at the White House in recent months.”
The suit over the birthday letter to Epstein—whom Trump was publicly friends with in the 1980s and ‘90s until a reported falling out in the early 2000s—is just part of a sweeping effort by the president and his political enablers “to undermine and chill the most basic freedoms protected under the First Amendment,” as the advocacy group Free Press put it in a December analysis.
In addition to the Journal case, examples included Trump’s legal battles with the BBC and The New York Times, the White House taking control of the presidential press pool, the administration blocking The Associated Press from the Oval Office over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, ABC temporarily suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following comments from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, and the Pentagon’s legally contested media policy.
Such attacks continue. In March, as the costs of his unconstitutional war on Iran mounted, Trump floated “treason” charges against media outlets that he accused of reporting false information about the conflict.
AMERICANS ARE DOWN ON DEMOCRATS — UNTIL THE ALTERNATIVE IS THE GOP. You may have heard the Democratic Party is facing a crisis: The brand is weak. Poll after poll shows Americans view the party no more favorably than the Republican Party, despite the GOP having a generally reviled leader in President Trump, Andrew Mangan noted at DailyKos.com (4/12),
Those are just the toplines, though. And the funny thing is, when surveys get more specific, a different pattern emerges: Americans trust the Democrats a lot more than the Republicans.
A recent YouGov poll showed that familiar topline: 38% of Americans viewed the Democratic Party favorably, and 38% viewed the Republican Party favorably.
But then it asked which party Americans trust more across 29 issues, ranging from the environment and education to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. On 12 issues, neither party is more trusted than the other, or a party’s advantage is within the poll’s margin of error.
Of the remaining 17 issues, the Democratic Party has an edge on 14.
Many are the typical areas of strength for Democrats: health care, democracy, and abortion. Their biggest leads come on LGBTQ+ issues (25 percentage points), the environment (23 points), and vaccines (21 points)—areas in which the GOP is particularly hostile.
Compare that with the Republican Party, which Americans trust more on only three issues: the military, Venezuela, and crime.
But there is also the issue of magnitude.
Democrats have double-digit advantages on a dozen issues, including the Epstein investigation (19 points) and sweeping policy areas like civil rights (18 points) and education (14 points). But Republicans have a double-digit lead on only one issue—and barely. By 10 points, Americans trust the GOP more than the Democrats to handle crime.
For the public, there seems to be a disconnect. They don’t like the Democratic Party, but when the only realistic alternative is the Republican Party, well, a lot of them trust Democrats just fine.
Party preference is far from the only area where this disconnect shows up.
In 2024, just ahead of the presidential election, 55% of Americans wanted to decrease the number of immigrants allowed into the United States, according to Gallup. It was a shocking topline—and it crumbled quite a bit when Americans were asked exactly what types of immigrants should not be allowed into the country.
For instance, should a 13-year-old boy and his family fleeing war be allowed into the United States? Only 20% of voters would turn them away, per a Data for Progress poll fielded in January 2025. And notably, Gallup’s data also swung back hard in 2025, with the share wanting less immigration falling 25 points, to just 30%.
The disconnect also turns up when it comes to government regulation.
Since 2006, a plurality of Americans has consistently said there is too much government regulation, according to Gallup data. In 2024, 42% said there was too much, while just 27% said there wasn’t enough. The share wanting more regulation has never seen more than 31% support since Gallup first began asking the question, in 2001.
However, more specificity begets more support.
Another new YouGov poll asked Americans about their thoughts on the level of regulation for 42 different industries. And when it comes time to pick, which industries do Americans think need deregulation? The answer is … none.
Yes, there is not a single industry for which the share of Americans in favor of less regulation is higher than the share that wants more regulation.
In fact, shocking majorities of Americans want higher regulation of some industries. Nearly 80% want increased regulation of artificial intelligence, and at least 60% want more for social media, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, cryptocurrency, and gambling.
But not only that, there are 25 industries where the share wanting more regulation is meaningfully higher than the share that wants regulation to remain as is. That includes industries as divisive as firearms. A majority of Americans (57%) want more regulation of the gun industry, while only 14% want less regulation and 20% want the level of regulation to remain the same.
For 12 industries, the pro-status-quo share is larger than the share that wants increased regulation, but the difference is statistically meaningful for only seven. And there is just one industry (fashion) for which a majority of Americans want the level of regulation to remain as is.
What all of this tells us is that Americans often think in sweeping terms—I don’t trust the Democratic Party, I don’t like red tape, etc.—but when forced to think things through, they like their other options even less.
NEW EVIDENCE BOLSTERS CLAIM US LIED ABOUT ANOTHER IRAN AIRSTRIKE MASSACRE. New information published April 10 by the New York Times further suggests that the US military may have lied when it tried to pin the blame for a February airstrike that killed 21 people in Iran on the Iranian government, with evidence indicating that the US carried out the attack with a new missile designed to inflict maximum casualties, Brett Wilkins noted at CommonDreams.org (4/11).
While much of the world knows about the February 28 massacre of around 175 children and staff at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab—and about how President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the slaughter—the strike that hit a sports hall and playground in Lamerd on the same day, the first day of the war, received far less media coverage.
Munitions experts and the Times concluded that US-made Precision Strike Missiles, or PrSMs—pronounced “prism”—struck the residential area of the southern Iranian city. Developed by Lockheed Martin, PrSMs are airburst weapons, exploding above their targets and blasting 180,000 lethal tungsten pellets in every direction. Video footage of the Lamerd strike shows multiple airbursts.
The Times verified the identities of 21 people killed in the strike. At least five victims were children, the youngest of them just 2 years old. Helma Ahmadizadeh, 10, and Elham Zaeri, 11, were attending volleyball practice at the sports hall when it was bombed. Helma survived the strike with no visible injuries. However, she told her coach that she felt something enter her body. A medical examination at a local hospital revealed a small object in her body. She subsequently died.
“A young boy, Ilia Khatami, was killed alongside his coach, Mahmoud Najaf,” the newspaper said. “The Times confirmed their deaths, and the death of a second boy, Abdul Mosavar Rahmani, who was from Afghanistan.”
The 2-year-old, Avina Barzegar, was mortally wounded by a small object while she was playing outside her home. Video posted on Telegram shows her being treated in a local hospital before she died.
Local officials said 100 other people were injured in the attack.
Pentagon officials previously denied US responsibility for the attack following the March 29 publication of a Times investigation that used video analysis to identify PrSMs as the missiles used in the strike. US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins issued a statement on March 31 calling reports that the US carried out the attack “false” and suggesting that weapon used in the strike was an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile.
The Times’ latest analysis is “based on new video footage of detonations, new photo evidence of the damage, a missile-trajectory assessment, and the perspectives of multiple experts, including three US government officials.”
Findings include distinctive damage patterns consistent with tungsten pellet dispersion from a PrSM airburst, the discovery of a third detonation site consistent with a PrSM, a strike trajectory indicating the missile was launched from where US forces are based, and the sports hall’s proximity to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. The Minab girls’ school is also located very close to an IRGC base.
Critically, Iran does not have any missiles in its arsenal that function in a similar manner to PrSMs.
“The problem is that CENTCOM chose as an alternative a very identifiable missile,” Amaël Kotlarski, who leads the weapons team at the defense intelligence firm Janes, told the Times. “And the Hoveyzeh’s distinct features aren’t seen in the video.”
Shahryar Pasandideh, another military analyst consulted by the Times, said “there is no public information to suggest that Iranian cruise missiles, including the Hoveyzeh, are equipped with an airburst fuse, let alone an airburst fuse and pre-formed tungsten pellets.”
After the Minab massacre, Trump claimed that Iran had somehow acquired a US Tomahawk missile and used it to blow up the school.
An earlier investigation by the BBC Verify also concluded that the Lamerd strike was carried out using US PrSM missiles.
More than 3,000 people have been killed over 42 days of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to medical officials there. This figure reportedly includes over 1,300 civilians, hundreds of whom are women and children.
