Vice President JD Vance, a man who converted to Catholicism as an adult and has repeatedly proven himself one of the most devout and principled Catholic voices in American public life, just delivered a stinging message to Pope Leo XIV: Stick to matters of morality and leave American public policy to the President of the United States.
Pope Leo has doubled down, condemning war and warning against using religious messaging to justify violence, insisting he will “continue to speak loudly” for peace.
Vance, speaking on Fox News with Brett Baier, didn’t mince words as the radical left and their Vatican allies continue their latest meltdown over President Trump’s America First agenda.
Bret Baier: Do you think that when the president says it’s hurting him very badly—going catering to the radical left—that it’s hurting the Catholic Church? Do you agree with the president there?
JD Vance: Well, look, I think the president has the prerogative to set American foreign policy. He’s got the prerogative to set American immigration policy. He has to look out for the interests of the United States of America. And that inevitably means that when the Vatican comments on issues of public policy, sometimes there’s going to be agreement—of course—and sometimes there’s going to be disagreement.
I think that’s a reasonable thing, Bret. Again, I don’t think that it’s particularly newsworthy, but I certainly think that in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality—to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church—and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.
But when they’re in conflict, they’re in conflict. I don’t worry about it too much, Bret. I think it’s a natural thing. I’m sure it’ll happen in the future, and it’s not that big of a deal that it happened in the past.
WATCH:
Fox News’ Bret Baier: “Do you think that when the president says it’s ‘hurting him very badly,’ ‘catering to the radical left’ is hurting the Catholic Church?’ Do you agree with the president there?”
Vance also addressed the media firestorm surrounding Trump’s viral AI-generated image. Vance dismissed the outrage as media-driven hysteria.
WATCH:
JUST NOW — JD VANCE on Trump’s deleted post after religious backlash: “He doesn’t send everything through a communications professional.”
“The president was posting a joke and of course he took it down because he recognized that a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor… pic.twitter.com/oFiRV6ry1d
Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, says he will not veto European escalation in Ukraine. The world just moved closer to war with Russia. Photo courtesy of the European Policy Centre.
Viktor Orbán’s concession on Sunday following Hungary’s parliamentary election removes the most consistent single-state obstacle to EU consensus on Ukraine, and in doing so raises the probability of European escalation in a conflict the continent lacks the military capacity to sustain without American backing.
Orbán conceded defeat after early results showed the opposition Tisza party on course for a two-thirds majority, with Tisza projected to win 135 of 199 seats and Fidesz taking 57. Voter turnout surpassed 77%, the highest since the fall of communism in 1989. Tisza’s leader, Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who founded the party two years ago, will become prime minister.
Orbán had functioned as a structural brake on EU Ukraine policy. For more than a year, joint EU summit communiqués on Ukraine carried an asterisk noting the position “was firmly supported by 26 heads of state or government” rather than all 27, because Orbán refused to sign any statement backing Kyiv. He vetoed a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, tying the bloc to a dispute over a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil. He also blocked a 6.6 billion euro lethal aid package from the EU’s European Peace Facility, satellite image sharing with Ukraine, and EU accession talks for Kyiv.
Magyar stated Monday that Hungary would maintain its opt-out from participating in the €90 billion (approximately $100 billion) loan financially but would not veto it, allowing the EU to proceed. His personal reservations about weapons transfers and Ukraine’s EU accession bid are structurally irrelevant. Measures requiring unanimity were blocked by Orbán. Magyar will not block them. The brake is gone.
The significance of Orbán’s removal is that, without a veto blocking consensus, the EU is more likely to agree on additional weapons, money, and equipment transfers to Ukraine. That trajectory increases the probability of a Russian reaction. The question is whether European leaders have accurately calculated the risk.
European behavior suggests they have not. Countries that genuinely believe they must confront a nuclear-armed adversary, the world’s number-two military power, alone would be pushing for negotiations, not escalation.
The fact that Europe continues to increase support for Ukraine and celebrates Magyar’s victory indicates European leaders privately calculate that American intervention remains available despite the Trump administration’s rhetoric. That calculation may be wrong. When the Strait of Hormuz was threatened, and European energy security was directly at stake, Europe did not mobilize a naval coalition to support the U.S.
Even if they did not want to support Trump, they should have been willing to fight for their own oil and their own self-interest, but they were not. A bloc unwilling to deploy forces to the Strait of Hormuz and face Iran, which lacks a navy, in order to protect its own oil supply, is not a bloc prepared to fight Russia, the world’s number-two military power, over Ukrainian territory.
Trump has considered withdrawing the US from NATO and has stated he no longer wants involvement in the Ukraine war. The only basis on which Europe might still expect American intervention in a full-scale war with Russia is Article 5. But Article 5 is a collective defense obligation triggered by an external attack on a member state. It does not apply if NATO member actions provoke a Russian response.
If escalating weapons transfers or intelligence support crosses Russian red lines and Moscow retaliates, the legal and political basis for invoking Article 5 becomes contested. Russia has already argued that Western weapons used to strike Russian territory constitute co-belligerence. A substantial number of European countries are not NATO members, and Russia could strike any of them without triggering Article 5 at all.
There has been a lot of hollow talk from Canada and Europe about going it alone without the U.S. Most European militaries spent three decades configured for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, not peer warfare. Their doctrine, training, and institutional culture reflect that.
In Afghanistan, at the peak, roughly 40,000 of the 130,000 troops were non-American, the majority European. Many were restricted by their own governments from engaging in combat and instead focused on reconstruction, training, base security, and logistics. British combat deaths exceeded those of 26 other EU nations combined.
The UK suffered 454 deaths, including 404 killed in action, along with 615 seriously wounded and 2,187 wounded in action, with troop levels peaking at 9,500. In total, more than 850 non-U.S. NATO personnel were killed in Afghanistan, compared to over 2,400 Americans.
The Texas National Guard alone deployed approximately 23,000 personnel to Iraq and Afghanistan, maintained 3,000 to 5,000 troops in theater each year in an almost continuous cycle from 2001 onward, held divisional-level command in both wars, and operated without national caveats restricting combat. That is a single American state’s part-time force.
European naval capacity presents the same problem at sea. Europe fields six aircraft carriers on paper, two each for the UK and Italy, one each for France and Spain, but realistically 2-3 are operational at any given time. The Royal Navy operated without a carrier from 2014 to 2021. Spain decommissioned its dedicated carrier without replacement.
The number of UK Type 23 frigates available for operations at any given time fluctuates between five and six hulls out of eight nominally in service. During the 2011 Libya operation, against a military that was not a peer adversary, European coalition members quickly exhausted their supply of naval cruise missiles.
European nuclear submarine capacity is concentrated entirely in two countries. The UK operates 10 nuclear submarines, comprising 4 Vanguard-class ballistic missile boats and 6 nuclear attack submarines, with a sixth Astute-class commissioned in 2025 and a seventh expected in 2026. France operates 10, comprising 4 Le Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarines and 6 Barracuda-class nuclear attack submarines, with all six to be delivered by 2030 and approximately 4-5 currently operational.
Every other European country operates zero nuclear submarines. Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, and Portugal rely entirely on conventional diesel-electric boats that must surface or snorkel regularly, have limited range, and cannot sustain prolonged open-ocean operations. Europe’s total operational nuclear submarine force is approximately 18-20 vessels, split between two countries. The US Navy alone operates more than 50 nuclear submarines.
Even if Europe had the submarines, aircraft carriers, manpower, weapons, and munitions to take on Russia, European defense continues to depend on American logistics, intelligence, satellites, and nuclear deterrence. In short, Europe doesn’t stand a chance against Russia without U.S. backing.
Europe is making political decisions that increase the probability of conflict with a military power it cannot independently confront. With Orbán gone, there is no longer an institutional mechanism inside the EU to slow that process down.
President Donald Trump just delivered a blistering, no-holds-barred takedown of Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pontiff, exposing the Vatican leader as weak on crime, disastrous on foreign policy, and far too cozy with the Radical Left.
In a blistering Truth Social post Sunday night, the 47th President torched the Chicago-born pontiff for his repeated far-left jabs at America First policies, calling him “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.”
He called out the Pope’s dangerous foreign policy, which seems to prioritize the “civilization” of a terror-sponsoring regime in Iran over the safety of the American people.
Trump also pointed out the stark contrast between the Pope and his own family.
Trump noted that he recently hosted the Pope’s brother, Louis, at the White House, a man who actually understands the MAGA movement.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. He talks about “fear” of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart.
I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t!
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.
And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History. Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise.
He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.
If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican. Unfortunately, Leo’s Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons, does not sit well with me, nor does the fact that he meets with Obama Sympathizers like David Axelrod, a LOSER from the Left, who is one of those who wanted churchgoers and clerics to be arrested.
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!”
This comes just days after The Gateway Pundit reported Pope Leo XIV rushing to condemn President Trump’s iron-fisted Iran warning as “truly unacceptable.”
The far-left pontiff blasted Trump’s ultimatum to the bloodthirsty Iranian regime, siding with the mullahs over American strength.
As TGP’s Cassandra MacDonald reported on Saturday, Vice President JD Vance announced no deal had been reached with Iran after a 21-hour marathon negotiations.
Vance made the announcement during a press conference in Islamabad on Saturday night.
The Vice President traveled to Pakistan to engage in historic, direct negotiations with Iran after President Trump announced a double-sided ceasefire last week.
“We’ve been at it now for 21 hours, and we’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,” Vance said.
“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” he added.
WATCH:
JD Vance: “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the US. So, we go back to the US having not come to an agreement … they have chosen not to accept our terms” pic.twitter.com/uqFnwVT76g
At the time it was unclear which specific ‘red line’ points the US and Iran could not agree to during the negotiations.
“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on, and what things we’re not willing to accommodate them on, and we’ve made that as clear as we possibly could,” Vance said. “Iran may have chosen not to accept our terms.”
“Well, I won’t go into all the details because I don’t want to negotiate in public after we negotiated for 21 hours in private,” Vance said.
“But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the President of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations,” he said.
Here is the US’s ‘red line’ list according to Semafor (It is unclear if any points were agreed upon):
– End all uranium enrichment
– Dismantle all major nuclear enrichment facilities
– Retrieve highly enriched uranium
– Accept a broader peace, security and de-escalation framework that includes regional allies
– End funding for terrorist proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis
– Fully open the Strait of Hormuz, charging no tolls for passage
Per a US official, the US and Iran did not reach agreement to all of the following points during talks this weekend (which are considered red lines for the US):
– End all uranium enrichment
– Dismantle all major nuclear enrichment facilities
– Retrieve highly enriched uranium…
On Sunday, following Vance’s announcement that Iran failed to agree to the US’s terms, President Trump and CENTCOM announced that there will be a Naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on April 13 at 10 a.m. ET, in accordance with the President’s proclamation.
The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt (R) has confirmed that hundreds of non-citizens were found registered to vote, and in some cases casting ballots, in the Keystone State.
The revelation comes on top of a much larger pool of 11,198 voters who were previously flagged for eligibility concerns, triggering renewed scrutiny over how such discrepancies were allowed to persist in a critical swing state.
According to Spotlight PA, Schmidt’s own investigation as former Philadelphia City Commissioner uncovered a disastrous PennDOT motor-voter glitch that let 168 non-citizens in Philly register through the automatic system (required by federal law but botched beyond belief), plus another 52 registered by other shady means. These non-citizens didn’t just sit on the rolls, they cast a total of 227 votes across multiple elections!
Screenshot
And that’s just Philadelphia. Statewide, back in 2018, officials sent confirmation letters to 11,198 voters flagged as potential non-citizens after matching driver’s license data with immigration records.
Some were removed, but the state still admits they don’t have an exact count of how many illegals slipped through. This scandal traces back to the mid-1990s, meaning generations of non-citizens have been diluting the votes of real American citizens in the Keystone State!
Despite this, Schmidt has stopped short of embracing what many Americans see as very real and growing threats—particularly when it comes to noncitizen voting. Instead, he continues to emphasize a so-called “balance” between election security and voter access.
“I’ve always heard my whole life, even though I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, about concerns about voter fraud and voting irregularities in Philadelphia elections,” Schmidt told Votebeat and Spotlight PA in a recent interview. “So I wanted to be able to sort out fact from fiction.”
As The Gateway Pundit has repeatedly documented, Pennsylvania’s election system has been a disaster for years.
We’ve covered the non-citizen motor-voter fiasco since at least 2017-2018, when Schmidt himself testified about potentially tens of thousands of matches between non-citizen driver’s licenses and voter registrations.
Public Interest Legal Foundation lawsuits and analyses pointed to over 100,000 potential non-citizen registrations at one point. Yet Democrats in Harrisburg , under Gov. Josh Shapiro, continue to drag their feet.
Schmidt’s own office has resisted turning over full voter data to the Trump DOJ for citizenship verification, hiding behind “privacy” excuses even as the feds push for SAVE database checks.
This is a reminder that the DOJ is suing Pennsylvania for its voter rolls
b/c Secretary Al Schmidt refuses to turn them over.
Meanwhile, the picture below is an actively registered illegal alien
Why the resistance if there’s “nothing to see here,” Mr. Secretary? One illegal vote is one too many in a state decided by mere thousands in recent cycles!
BREAKING
Secretary Al Schmidt discovered hundreds of non-citizens on the Pennsylvania voter rolls.
This is in addition to another 11,198 voters that were flagged.
So, yes, we have incontrovertible PROOF that illegal aliens are voting in PA.
Let us begin with a confession. I am a devoted admirer of NATO. I believe in collective defense, in transatlantic solidarity, and in the sacred principle that an attack on one is an attack on all. I believe in this the same way I believe in Santa Claus — with great warmth, considerable nostalgia, and the quiet understanding that the evidence has become somewhat inconvenient.
So let us examine the evidence together. Calmly. Without partisan affiliation, without personal animosity toward any leader, without the fog of political preference. Just facts. You may draw your own conclusions.
The Birth of a Great Idea
On April 4, 1949, twelve nations gathered in Washington and signed the North Atlantic Treaty. The logic was elegant in its simplicity: the Soviet Union was expanding, Europe was exhausted, and America was the only power capable of holding the line. Collective defense would deter aggression. An attack on one would be treated as an attack on all.
It was, by any measure, one of the most successful security arrangements in history. For forty years, it worked. The Soviets did not march west. Europe rebuilt. The alliance held. And then the Soviet Union collapsed. This is where our story gets interesting.
No Action, Talk Only”
There is a phrase that circulates quietly among senior military officials within NATO itself — not in press releases, not in summit communiqués, but in the corridors where people speak honestly. They call the alliance “No Action, Talk Only.”
I have heard this personally from sources inside the organization. NATO. No Action, Talk Only. It is, as acronyms go, devastatingly accurate.
When the Soviet threat disappeared, NATO faced an existential question: what are we for? The answer, delivered by President George W. Bush after 2001, was that NATO would now fight terrorism. This sounded decisive. It was, in practice, philosophically catastrophic. NATO’s post-Cold War strategists decided that the enemy was a tactic. They would fight “terrorism” — an abstraction, a method, a fog. Predictably, they could never agree on what terrorism actually was.
Meanwhile, in 2008, Russia attacked Georgia. The alarm bells rang. NATO remembered, briefly, what it existed to do. But only briefly.
The 2% Fiction
NATO’s financial model is, in theory, straightforward. Each member maintains its own military and is expected to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. In practice, during Donald Trump’s first presidency, a rather uncomfortable truth emerged: almost no one was paying.
Trump’s assessment was direct: You are not paying your dues. The United States finances 80% of this alliance. You have dismantled your own defense forces, confident that America will protect you. Biden arrived, reassured everyone that America would always be there, and NATO’s member states promptly resumed their previous arrangements — paying less than required.
Article V: A Clause in Search of a Country
Let us count. Because counting is instructive.
Iran struck a British military base in Cyprus. Both Britain and Greece are NATO members. Article V — not invoked.
The Royal Navy’s Scheduling Conflict: Britain agreed to send a single frigate to protect its base. It was discovered that the vessel required repairs. The trade unions refused to authorize overtime. A British warship could not be repaired because labor regulations did not permit workers to exceed eight hours per day.
The Turkish-Polish Incident: Iran struck Turkish territory multiple times with ballistic missiles. Turkey requested a single Patriot battery from Poland. Poland said no. The United States intervened. Poland said no again. Three NATO members struck by Iranian weapons. Zero invocations of Article V.
Coalition of the Willing — To Watch
When Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, global oil prices surged. Trump called on NATO allies to protect their own tanker routes. The response was instructive.
Spain refused American forces use of its bases. France did the same. Italy declined refueling.
Germany’s Chancellor Merz offered to send one warship — provided the United States guaranteed its safety, and provided Iran gave its permission first. France, at the United Nations, voted alongside Russia and China to block a resolution that would have authorized forcible reopening of the Strait.
The Question Americans Are Asking
The American taxpayer is beginning to ask: Why exactly are we in this alliance? We pay 80% of NATO’s collective costs. We maintain the nuclear umbrella. And when we ask our allies to protect their own tanker routes, they cite scheduling conflicts and labor regulations.
The Monroe Doctrine — which some in Washington now call the “Donroe Doctrine” — has returned to American strategic thinking. The premise is simple: America’s primary interest is America’s hemisphere. Everything else is a choice, not an obligation.
What Is NATO For?
In 1951, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote: “If in ten years, all American troops stationed in Europe… have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed.” That was 75 years ago. American troops are still in Europe.
There are two possible arrangements. First: America is NATO’s client (Europe hires protection). Second: America is NATO’s ally (partners share risks). NATO has spent thirty years insisting on the second arrangement while practicing the first — without paying for it.
Conclusion
I have presented you with facts. Dates, amounts, decisions, votes, labor disputes, and ballistic missiles. I have offered no verdict. I would ask only that you read what you have read again and draw your own conclusion. Some conclusions write themselves.
Emzar Gelashvili is a former Member of the Georgian Parliament (7th convocation) and a former senior official across Georgia’s Special Services, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of State Security, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He is an independent security and intelligence analyst based in California and publishes regular geopolitical insights on Substack.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer observes an illegal alien arrival flight at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, May 30, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by 1st Lt. Nadia K. Rossin)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has just dealt a crushing blow to open-borders activists.
The full Fifth Circuit REFUSED to grant en banc rehearing in the critical case Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, locking in its earlier February 2026 panel ruling that upholds the Trump administration’s full authority to detain illegal aliens without bond hearings while their deportation proceedings move forward.
No dissents. No hesitation. Just pure, unadulterated common sense from the court.
Big win for President Trump on immigration. Can President Trump detain illegal immigrants during the deportation process? Every Circuit court to reach the merits has answered that question “Yes.” Today, the full Fifth Circuit declined to rehear the case. No Judge dissented. pic.twitter.com/4FTk2vVKTm
As we reported right here at The Gateway Pundit back in February, the original 2-1 panel decision, written by Judge Edith Jones and joined by Judge Kyle Duncan, correctly held that illegal aliens who entered without inspection are “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b).
Even long-term illegal residents who snuck in years ago get no automatic bond hearings to waltz back into American communities.
This victory comes on the heels of similar wins, including the Eighth Circuit’s recent ruling siding with the Trump administration on detention without bond.
The 8th Circuit overturned a Minnesota activist district judge’s outrageous ruling that would have handed bond hearings to illegal aliens like Joaquin Herrera Avila, a repeat border invader from Mexico who snuck into the U.S. illegally in 2006 and again in 2016.
The 8th Circuit ruled that aliens present in the United States without lawful admission are “applicants for admission” and “seeking admission” under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), meaning ICE can detain them without bond while removal proceedings grind forward.
