Trump Sends Marco Rubio — Not JD Vance — to Face Pope Leo XIV
The choice is a remarkable snub of the highest-ranking Catholic in the federal government — and it forces Rubio to defend an Iran war that is now his alone.
Thank you for reading! Letters from Leo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this movement, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Before you read on, join 75,000 Americans and sign our letter to President Trump demanding that he apologize for attacking Pope Leo XIV. We’ll deliver it to the president via JD Vance.
[UPDATE at 10:33 PM EDT: Letters from Leo can now independently confirm the White House requested the Rubio meeting with Pope Leo XIV.]
On Thursday, Marco Rubio will walk into the Apostolic Palace and face Pope Leo XIV.
JD Vance will be at home in Washington — sidelined from the administration’s first cabinet-level audience with the pope since Trump publicly broke with him over the Iran war.
It is a remarkable snub. Vance is the highest-ranking Catholic in the federal government, the vice president of the United States, the man who flew to Rome last year with Rubio to embrace the new American pope.
That tells you how badly the rift inside this administration has fractured.
Vance has spent the last few weeks at war with the pope. As tensions flared between the Vatican and the Trump White House over migration and the Iran war, Vance’s allies falsely suggested that the Vatican was coordinating with American journalists and operatives to wound the vice president.
From the chaplaincy of the U.S. armed forces, the military archbishop declared the Iran war unjust. The Vatican’s own secretary of state told Trump directly to put an end to it. Pope Leo XIV himself called for aerial bombing to be banned forever.
Through all of it, Vance kept attacking. He has now been rebuked by two popes, and his response was to publish a book about finding God.
So Trump sent Rubio.
It is not a rescue. In fact, Rubio is in hot water already. Here’s the background.
