Rubios

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican raised the “need to work tirelessly in favor of peace” in talks Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who came to Rome on a fence-mending visit after President Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war.

Both the Vatican and the U.S. State Department stressed that Rubio’s meetings with Leo and the Vatican’s top diplomat underscored strong bilateral ties. Those relations, though, have been strained over Trump’s repeated broadsides about Leo’s calls for peace and dialogue to end the U.S.-Israeli war.

Rubio, a practicing Catholic, has often been called on to tone down or explain Trump’s harsh rhetoric. He had an audience first with Leo, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. During a 2½-hour visit, Rubio then met with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit had strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks.

“Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.

After the meetings, the U.S. State Department said that Rubio and Parolin discussed “ongoing humanitarian efforts in the Western Hemisphere and efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East. The discussion reflected the enduring partnership between the United States and the Holy See in advancing religious freedom.”

In a separate statement about the audience with Leo, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said that the two discussed the situation in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere. “The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.

The Vatican, for its part, said that during Rubio’s meetings with both Leo and Parolin, “the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America was reaffirmed.”

It said the two sides exchanged views on the current events “with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as on the need to work tirelessly in favor of peace.”

Rubio also has meetings Friday with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Those meetings might not be much easier for Washington’s top diplomat, given both have strongly defended Leo against Trump’s attacks and have criticized the Iran war as illegal — drawing the president’s ire.

A mission to smooth ties

The tensions began when Trump lashed out at Leo on social media last month, saying the pope was soft on crime and terrorism for comments about the administration’s immigration policies and deportations as well as the Iran war. Leo then said that God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who wage war.

Later, Trump posted a social media image appearing to liken himself to Jesus Christ, which was deleted after a backlash. He has refused to apologize to Leo and has sought to explain away the post by saying that he thought the image was a representation of him as a doctor.

Rubio said that Trump’s recent criticisms of Leo were rooted in his opposition to Iran potentially obtaining a nuclear weapon, which he said could be used against millions of Catholics and other Christians.

Leo has never said Iran should obtain nuclear weapons and that the Catholic Church “for years has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there.”

“The mission of the church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth,” Leo said late Tuesday, after Trump again accused him of being “OK” with Iran having a nuclear weapon.

By Thursday, tensions seemed to have eased.

Rubio gave Leo a small crystal football paperweight. He acknowledged Leo’s known allegiance to the Chicago White Sox, saying “you’re a baseball guy,” but noted that the football had the seal of the State Department on it.

“What to get someone who has everything?” Rubio joked as he gave Leo the paperweight.

Leo, for his part, gave Rubio a pen apparently made of olive wood — “olive being of course the plant of peace,” Leo said — with his coat of arms on it and a picture book of Vatican artworks.

Trump also has criticized Meloni and other NATO allies for a lack of support for the Iran war, recently announcing plans to withdraw thousands of American troops from Germany in the coming months.

Vatican seen as willing to have dialogue

Giampiero Gramaglia, former head of the ANSA news agency and its onetime Washington correspondent, said that he didn’t expect much to come out of Rubio’s visit for Italian or Vatican relations. He, and other Italian commentators, believe Rubio instead was looking to smooth over relations with the pope for his own political ambitions, as well as the upcoming midterm U.S. congressional elections and 2028 presidential race.

“I doubt Rubio has the role of conciliator for Trump,” he told Italy’s Foreign Press Association. “I have the perception that Rubio’s mission is more about himself” and his political ambitions as a prominent Catholic Republican.

The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture office, said that Rubio’s mission wasn’t to “convert” the pope to Trump’s side. Rather, Washington “has come to acknowledge — implicitly but legibly — that (Leo’s) voice carries weight in the world that cannot simply be dismissed.”

“The situation created by President Trump’s remarks required a high-level, direct intervention, conducted in the proper language of diplomacy: a semantic corrective to a narrative of frontal conflict with the church,” he wrote in an essay this week.

Cuba is also on the agenda

Rubio said that topics other than the Iran war were on the agenda for the Vatican visit, including Cuba. The Holy See is particularly concerned about the Trump administration’s threats of potential military action there following its January ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has said frequently that Cuba could be “next,” and even suggested that once the Iran war is over, naval assets deployed in the Middle East could return to the United States by way of Cuba.

Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime Cuba hawk.

“We gave Cuba $6 million of humanitarian aid, but obviously they won’t let us distribute it,” Rubio said. “We distributed it through the church. We’d like to do more.”

Winfield and Lee write for the Associated Press. Lee reported from Washington.

WASHINGTON — As President Trump assembled his Cabinet last week, he asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance to give an update on the Iran war.

Rubio, known for his hawkish views, gave an impassioned defense of the war, calling it “a favor” to the United States and the world.

Vance, who has long pushed for restraint in U.S. military intervention overseas, was more sedate. He said that the U.S. now has “options” it didn’t have a year ago and that it is important Iran does not get a nuclear weapon — before redirecting his remarks toward wishing the troops a happy Easter.

The exchange was a distillation of their diverging postures toward the war that their boss has launched in Iran. And it comes as some would-be Republican presidential candidates begin quietly courting officials in key states like New Hampshire in the early stages of the GOP’s next nomination fight.

With Vance and Rubio seen as the party’s strongest potential candidates in a 2028 primary, the two have to balance their roles in the Trump administration with their future political plans.

“It’s very obvious from the way that Rubio talks about Iran and the way that Vance talks about Iran that they are of different casts of mind,” said Curt Mills, the executive director of “The American Conservative” magazine and a vocal critic of the war. The Cabinet meeting episode was telling, he said, because it seemed as though Vance, discussing Easter, was “literally trying to talk about anything else other than the war.”

The White House addressed the Rubio-Vance relationship on Wednesday in an unsolicited statement after the initial publication of this article.

“President Trump has full confidence in both Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio, who continue to be trusted voices within the administration,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “He values both the vice president and the secretary’s opinions and wealth of expertise.”

It’s too soon to forecast how Republican voters might feel about the war next spring, when the 2028 contest is expected to begin in earnest, but the risks for both Vance and Rubio are acute. Rubio’s full-throated support for the war could come back to haunt him depending on how the conflict develops. Vance, meanwhile, would risk accusations of disloyalty if he were to stray too far from Trump, but struggles to square an appearance of support for the war with his past comments.

Vance, who served in the Marines in the Iraq war, has said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but he’s long been skeptical of foreign military interventions.

Trump seemed to allude that Vance may have held onto that position in private discussions about Iran, telling reporters that Vance was “philosophically a little bit different than me” at the outset of the conflict.

“I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic,” Trump said.

Though Vance has been careful in how he speaks about the war, what he’s not saying has been conspicuous. On a March 13 trip to North Carolina, he was twice asked by reporters if he had concerns about the conflict. Each time, he said it was important that Trump could have conversations with advisers “without his team then running their mouths to the American media.”

A few days later at the White House, when Vance was again asked if he had concerns, he accused the reporter of “trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between me and the president.”

For Rubio, long before he became the country’s chief diplomat, he voiced support for muscular foreign policy and American intervention abroad.

Days into the war, he told reporters that it was “a wise decision” for Trump to launch the operation, that there “absolutely was an imminent threat” from Iran and that the operation “needed to happen.”

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott pointed to last week’s Cabinet meeting as evidence that “the entire administration is in lockstep behind President Trump.”

“Secretary Rubio is proud to be on the team implementing President Trump’s policies, and he has a great relationship, both professionally and personally, with the entire team,” Pigott said.

Fractures are emerging in the GOP

The apparent split between Rubio and Vance on the Iran war is emblematic of the divide starting to cleave within the Republican Party. A recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found some divisions within the GOP on Iran, with about half of Republicans saying the U.S. military action has been “about right.” Relatively few Republicans, about 2 in 10, say military action has not gone far enough, while about one-quarter say it’s gone too far.

While some conservatives have described the war as a betrayal, many other Republicans have cheered on the president’s actions.

Alice Swanson, a 62-year-old who attended Vance’s event in North Carolina, said she wants Vance and Rubio to run together in 2028 but favors the vice president.

“I think he fully believes and supports exactly what his convictions are,” Swanson said.

Swanson acknowledged, nonetheless, that Vance has been an outspoken opponent of interventionist policy but has been quieter on the subject since the war. “I can see both sides,” Swanson said after expressing full support for Trump’s decisions.

Tracy Brill, a 62-year-old from Rocky Mount, spoke highly of Rubio, but declared, “I love JD Vance.”

She made it clear she sides with the president, calling the course he’s taken “spot on.” But she defended the vice president if he seems at odds with his past statements, noting politicians do it frequently. “They’ve all changed their positions at one point or another,” she said.

However, Joe Ropar, attending the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, said Rubio’s unequivocal support for the Iran war helped crystallize his preference for the secretary of state for 2028.

“I’m not looking at JD Vance for president, and it’s for stuff like that,” said Ropar, a 72-year-old retired military contractor from McKinney, Texas. “I don’t 100% trust him.”

Benjamin Williams, of Austin, Texas, said at CPAC that both Trump and Vance are “tied to this war.” The 25-year-old marketing specialist for Young Americans for Liberty is looking elsewhere for a candidate.

The political risks might not be known until the field fills out

Whether the war becomes a political problem for Vance and Rubio depends on who ultimately enters the GOP’s next presidential primary.

While Vance and Rubio are currently considered the overwhelming front-runners, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu expects a half dozen high-profile Republicans to enter the contest.

Sununu and former RNC Committeewoman Juliana Bergeron told The Associated Press that multiple Republican presidential prospects have reached out to them in recent weeks to discuss the political landscape in the state that traditionally hosts the opening presidential primary; they declined to name them.

Republican strategist Jim Merrill, a top New Hampshire adviser for Rubio’s 2016 presidential bid, predicted that Iran would become a flashpoint in 2028 — just as the Iraq war was for Democrats in 2004 and 2008.

“If for some reason things don’t go as anticipated, there will be contrasts drawn,” he said.

Still, Sununu is doubtful that Iran would become a meaningful dividing line in a prospective Vance-Rubio matchup given their status as prominent members of the Trump administration. Both will likely take credit if the conflict ends well, and both would look bad if it does not, he predicted.

“They’re tied together with the success or failure of Iran. It doesn’t really separate one versus the other, at least I don’t think that’s how the electorate will see it,” Sununu said.

Price and Peoples write for the Associated Press. Peoples reported from New York. AP writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Bill Barrow in Rocky Mount, N.C., and Thomas Beaumont in Grapevine, Texas, contributed to this report.