GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump appears to have moved past his recent dust-up with Pope Francis, saying the pontiff was “very, very nice” the day after he made comments many had interpreted as questioning Mr. Trump’s Christian faith.
Mr. Trump recalled getting information from his team last Thursday that the pope had just made a big statement about him.
“So it’s good or bad?” Mr. Trump said Wednesday at a town hall-style event at Regent University in Virginia Beach. “They said, not good. I said, oh, this is a disaster.”
“The first thing I thought of, I said, I’ve seen the Vatican — that’s the most incredible wall; that wall goes up to that ceiling,” Mr. Trump said. “He actually was very, very nice the next day. You know, nobody explained to him about the crime, nobody explained to him about the drugs pouring across and the economy. And he was actually very nice. But it was a very interesting period.”
Asked about Mr. Trump’s views on immigration, the pope had said someone who thinks only about building walls and not building bridges isn’t Christian, though he said he’d give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt. The businessman has repeatedly vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mr. Trump responded by saying the pope would wish Mr. Trump was president “if and when” there’s a terrorist attack on the Vatican and that the pope was being used as a pawn by the Mexican government.
On Friday, a spokesman for the pope clarified that he was “in no way” launching a personal attack on Mr. Trump or trying to tell people how to vote, but rather speaking generally about the need to build bridges rather than walls, the AP said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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