When Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was selected as pope Thursday, President Donald Trump quickly offered the first U.S.-born pontiff a hearty congratulations.
“It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope,” Trump said in a statement. “What excitement.”
But some of Trump’s most fervent followers do not appear to be feeling the excitement.
Almost immediately after Prevost, a native of the Chicago area who spent decades ministering in Peru, emerged from the conclave as the new pope and took the name Leo XIV, leaders of the MAGA movement began to cast him as an enemy.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who holds significant sway with Trump, wrote Thursday on social media that Leo’s style would be similar to that of his predecessor, Pope Francis, whom she described as “anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist.”
“Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to,” she wrote. “Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.”
And on Friday, guests on Steve Bannon’s popular right-wing “War Room” podcast piled on, casting Leo as a progressive figure and a continuation of Francis, an outspoken voice for migrants who was often at odds with Trump.
Bannon, one of the president’s top allies, told the BBC that the selection was “kind of jaw-dropping,” adding that there was “definitely going to be friction” between the new pope and Trump.
Few predicted that Prevost would be chosen, but Bannon was perhaps less stunned than he let on. In April, he said on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” that he believed the cardinal “unfortunately” was more likely to become pope than observers realized. He cited Leo’s ideological proximity to Francis and his connections to Latin America.
Much of Leo’s personal politics are unclear. Over the years, he has voted in Illinois several times, casting an absentee ballot in last year’s presidential election and voting in three Republican primaries since 2012, according to records from Will County, which is outside Chicago.
Records do not show him voting in Democratic primaries in that time frame. Illinois has open primaries, and voters there do not declare a party when they register to vote.
But the new pope had apparently expressed unease with Trump’s immigration platform. A social media account under his name posted an article in February that said Vice President JD Vance had misinterpreted Christian doctrine to support Trump’s mass deportation effort. (The New York Times did not independently verify whether he ran the account.)
Leo’s brother John Prevost told the Times on Thursday that he knew “for a fact” that the new pope was “not happy with what’s going on with immigration.”
On other issues, Leo has expressed positions that more neatly conform with those of many American social conservatives. In a 2012 address to bishops, he expressed concern about what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and decried aspects of modern culture that stir “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel.”
Francis, who died two weeks ago, had a tense relationship with conservative American Catholics, who felt marginalized during his 12-year pontificate.
Francis spoke out strongly against Trump at times. During Trump’s first term, Francis said a policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border was “immoral.” And he warned that those who shut borders “become prisoners of the walls that they build.”
Joan Francis Plum, a cousin of Leo’s, said in an interview Thursday that the new pope would “be like Francis.”
“I think that’s why Francis called him to the Vatican — because they were similar,” she said of her cousin, who was elevated to an influential Vatican office in 2023. “He was hand-picked by him. He’s very open-minded, and just loving.”