MAGA Pastor Robert Jeffress Says Donald Trump Understands the Bible Better Than the Pope

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Let's talk about Robert Jeffress. He is the Southern Baptist mega loving pastor also from Texas because of course he's from Texas. He was on one of those Sunday morning talk shows last weekend and he made a ridiculous argument that I just felt was worth discussing. The host, this was on Fox News, the host was basically talking about how Marco Rubio made a trip to the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo the 14th and they were talking about the war of words that has been happening between Trump and the Pope because the Pope has this weird idea that war is bad and maybe we shouldn't kill people.

[00:00:47]And Donald Trump is Donald Trump.

[00:00:50]And so Trump has been saying just really horrible things about the Pope in general. He's been trashing Pope Leo because, you know, Pope Leo clearly doesn't understand how smart Trump is and Jeffress was on Fox News to defend like what's going on? What what's Trump doing? And what Jeffress said is that he commended the Trump administration for meeting with the Pope and trying to work with the Pope. And Jeffress said the Pope is just wrong when it comes to Iran, which is weird because again there shouldn't be a war in Iran. Trump just chose to do that for no good reason whatsoever. Like the Strait of Hormuz was open before he got involved. The Obama uh nuclear weapons agreement with Iran was actually doing a pretty good job of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and Trump just rescinded it cuz it was Obama who put it together. So we shouldn't be in Iran. It was a dumb thing for Trump to do. But Jeffress cannot admit that. So, he's like, "Well, clearly the Pope doesn't get it."

[00:02:02]Um but, the thing I want to point out, Jeffries said, "In the Bible, the He said the Bible says the role of the church is to point people to faith in Jesus Christ. The role of government is to protect citizens from evildoers, and that is something that is said in Romans 13."

[00:02:22]And you know, the great irony is it looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches about the role of government than the Pope has. And I'm glad the President hasn't backed down at all. The idea that Trump apparently understands the Bible's role the the role of government better than the Pope is is laughable because the only thing Trump knows about the Bible is that if you wave it in front of white evangelicals, they will let you get away with anything.

[00:02:53]From financial corruption to overthrowing democracy to alleged stuff that happened on an unnamed island.

[00:03:00]And it's not like Pope Leo was even chiming in on the role of government.

[00:03:05]Let me show you what the Pope said that made Trump so mad. This is like his Easter Sunday commentary.

[00:03:13]Uh let those who have weapons lay them down.

[00:03:18]Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue. We cannot continue to be indifferent, and we cannot resign ourselves to evil.

[00:03:30]That's the thing that made Trump mad to begin with.

[00:03:34]And then he like trashes the Pope on social media after that. Um the Pope also said at the time, "We need to abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power before the world becomes indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people and the hatred and division that conflicts sow.

[00:03:57]And after Trump lashed out against him and reporters asked the Pope, "What do you say about that?" Guess what the Pope said next time around. And this is like shortly after Easter. Here's what the Pope said then. "I will not enter into debate. The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone. The message of the gospel is very clear. Blessed are the peacemakers.

[00:04:20]I will not shy away from announcing the message of the gospel and inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges of peace and reconciliation and looking for ways to avoid war anytime that's possible."

[00:04:33]And then he added, "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."

[00:04:42]Incredible.

[00:04:44]Like those were the supposedly controversial remarks that Jeffress insisted showed a lack of understanding of what the government should be doing.

[00:04:54]That actually tells you a lot more about Jeffress's own views than anything else cuz this guy cherry-picks Bible verses to affirm conservative cruelty, but he will ignore everything to the contrary.

[00:05:07]That's Robert Jeffress for you. And I know that because do you remember when Trump got inaugurated for the second time early 2025? What happened on the day of his inauguration? Trump and Vance they attended a church service at the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. And Mariann Budde, the bishop of that church, she urged them to use their powers for good.

[00:05:35]Like be nice.

[00:05:36]And what did Jeffress say at the time?

[00:05:39]He said that Budde insulted rather than encouraged our great president.

[00:05:46]So Robert Jeffress will say anything to defend Trump even when other Christian leaders are basically saying, "Hey, have you read this book? Cuz like, we did.

[00:05:58]And it's not whatever the hell you're doing."

[00:06:01]And Jeffress doesn't care. Jeffress, who by the way doesn't give a damn about the Bible, his whole church, and you know this if you watch his sermons, it's all about promoting Christian nationalism, false revisionist Christian history, and things like that. Jeffress wants to credit Trump for knowing the Bible better than the Pope in at least in terms of the government. But, Trump is the 2 Corinthians guy. He's the guy who said in an interview he doesn't need forgiveness, so he doesn't ask God for forgiveness. He's the guy who couldn't name his favorite Bible verse. He's the guy who was asked, "Do you prefer the Old Testament or the New Testament?"

[00:06:37]Answer, "New Testament Jesus stuff." And Trump is like, "Uh I like them both."

[00:06:43]He's the guy who held up a Bible in front of a church after his team drove away peaceful protesters with tear gas.

[00:06:50]Trump is the guy who sells a tacky Bible with sticky pages by plastering his name on it. He's the guy who posts AI slop depicting himself as Jesus or Dr. Jesus.

[00:07:03]And more recently, he's the guy who unveiled a golden statue of himself despite the Bible having a famous story about not worshipping a golden calf.

[00:07:15]That's the guy Jeffress is saying knows the Bible better than the Pope.

[00:07:22]I've said this before, but there's not a single white evangelical church in America that would ever allow Donald Trump to be their pastor if they wanted to be taken seriously. And yet more than half of Republican voters, a good chunk of whom would describe themselves as conservative Christians, seriously believe Trump is a man of faith.

[00:07:42]Meanwhile, just FYI, Pope Leo got his Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

[00:07:49]He got his doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

[00:07:56]He might know a little something about the Bible.

[00:07:59]Uh before I finish the story, I just want to show you one last thing that made me laugh. There was a poll recently done by The Economist and YouGov, and they pointed out >> [clears throat] >> that President Trump and Vice President Pence have criticized Pope Leo for comments he made about the war in Iraq.

[00:08:17]Who do you agree with more about the war?

[00:08:22]And you can see look at the top of this poll, the very top line there.

[00:08:27]48% of American adults side with Pope Leo.

[00:08:31]Only 28% side with Trump and Pence. It's a very unpopular war. But, I want to show you this right here.

[00:08:38]Among atheists and agnostics, I will remove myself from your screen so you could see this.

[00:08:44]Among atheists and agnostics, 80% of us agree with Pope Leo.

[00:08:50]Only 10% agree with Trump and Pence.

[00:08:53]Meanwhile, look at Roman Catholics here.

[00:08:56]Only 42% agree with the Pope. 31% agree with Trump and Pence.

[00:09:05]Atheists and agnostics are like twice as likely to be on the Pope's side on this very important issue than Catholics themselves.

[00:09:17]Holy crap.

[00:09:20]Like, do you know how awful someone has to be for the Pope to be the voice of moral authority?

[00:09:27]And who knew that in the national divorce, atheists get the Vatican?

[00:09:33]I don't know. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that MAGA Christians would choose Trump over the Bible. Like if they ever met the brown-skinned Palestinian Jesus, they would try to deport him, not worship him. But that is Christian nationalism for you. All of these guys who surround Trump will go out of their way to trash every Christian leader who says, "Hey Trump, you're not doing Christianity right."

[00:09:59]They will trash all those people and defend Trump no matter what he does because that's what matters to them.

[00:10:06]It's not the gospel, it's not the Bible, it's not anything Jesus said, it's whatever Trump says. That's what their religion is.

[00:10:15]All right, I will stop there with this story. What questions we got here?

[00:10:20]Oh, thanks for that donation. Bibi was pitching a regime change in Iran to every president for decades. Yes, he did and yes, there are clips of that. Trump was just the only one dumb enough to fall for it. That's the reason. Absolute I mean, Trump and every Republican and also John Fetterman for whatever reason.

[00:10:38]But yeah, that's accurate.

[00:10:42]Trump saw, "Why you calling me evil?"

[00:10:44]And the reporter was like, "So you think he was talking about you?" That was a great great thing. Who was that? Norah O'Donnell? Uh talking about accusations made Um I forgot who was making the accusations.

[00:10:58]But Trump is like, "Why are you talking about me?" And she's like, "Why do you think they're talking about you?" It was great. It was great.

[00:11:04]Good follow-up question. I love when reporters ask him follow-up questions.