Maggie Haberman Reminds CNN Viewers Of Trump Feud With Pope Francis Ahead Of Funeral

CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman caught CNN viewers up on President Donald Trump feud with Pope Francis as the late pontiff’s funeral approaches.

The 88-year-old Pope passed away Monday, and will lie in state until his funeral on Saturday. Trump is expected to attend.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper asked Haberman to remind viewers about the Pope-Trump feud that dates back to Trump’s first presidential campaign.

Haberman noted the feud “was a first for most of us covering politics”:

COOPER: So Maggie, can you just remind people what President Trump’s relationship with Pope Francis was like because the Pope said of then candidate Trump in 2016, a person who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be and not building bridges is not Christian.

And I know that then Trump replied that the Pope’s comments were disgraceful. But in 2017, they had a meeting that he described as fantastic.

HABERMAN: Yeah. Look, the block of Catholic voters who have backed Trump are pretty important to his coalition. And so, I think Trump has been fairly mindful of that for some time. You are correct. This didn’t start out as, it wasn’t even a relationship. It was the Pope voicing a criticism about Trump’s behavior and his approach to appealing to people in the U.S. And Trump hit back at the Pope, which I have to say was a first for most of us covering politics. But it’s not surprising that he is going to this, that the president is going to this funeral, Anderson. Number one, as I mentioned, the Catholic voters, voting bloc that has backed him as important. Number two, this is a huge global historic event and Trump tends to find appeal in that.

COOPER: When people talk about Pope Francis’ character, they obviously talk about a man of deep humility, shunned lavish trappings of the papacy, he prioritized the poor and the marginalized. Did that stark difference ever you think register with President Trump? Was it something you think he gave much thought to?

HABERMAN: No, I do not. I mean, I think this is something that Trump tends to put criticisms in a basket and that has gotten more pronounced over time. And it is basically that everybody who opposes him is against him in some form or another, and is coming at it not from a place of genuine disagreement, but from kind of a place of, usually in his characterization, malevolence. I don’t think that the Pope’s views about helping the poor and about charity are something that Trump has spent a lot of time lingering on.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.