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Is this coincidence or coordination?
That’s the question many Americans are now asking after longtime Obama strategist David Axelrod was spotted meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican just days before the Chicago-born pontiff ramped up his criticism of President Donald Trump and U.S. policy.
David Axelrod, the chief strategist behind Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns and a key player in the Obama White House, was spotted at the Vatican last week meeting with the newly installed “American” Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pontiff in history and a Chicago native with deep ties to the same political circles that produced Obama.
According to CBS News:
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday met with David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic strategist and former senior advisor to former President Barack Obama.
The meeting has many wondering if the pope might soon have a formal meeting with Obama himself.
Leo was born in Chicago and raised in south suburban Dolton. While Axelrod was born in New York, like Obama, he attended the University of Chicago, and after working as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune in the 1980s, he later helped Obama get elected president in 2008.
While the Vatican did not provide any details on Axelrod’s meeting with Leo on Thursday, six weeks ago, Obama made it clear he’d like to meet his hometown pope.
“Being president, or even being an ex-president, I can kind of meet everybody. So, I’ve met a lot of folks. The person who I have not yet met, and that I’m looking forward to meeting – and I hope I get an opportunity sometime in the future – is the new pope, who’s from Chicago, and a White Sox fan,” Obama said on Bryan Tyler Cohen’s podcast in February.
Then, almost immediately, Pope Leo XIV and a trio of cardinals began hammering President Trump and his America First policies in unusually aggressive terms.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton weighed in on X, blasting the optics of the appearance and the glaring double standard of three cardinals.
“America kills about 1,000,000 unborn human beings a year through abortion and yet three leading cardinals go on 60 Minutes to promote left-wing talking points on Trump, the illegal immigration invasion, etc.”
Commentator Mike Cernovich also warned that the media push appears coordinated and strategic, aimed squarely at reshaping Catholic voting behavior ahead of the midterms.
“The Catholic vote swung big for Trump in 2024… So the issue now, of course, is what can be done to bring the Catholics back to the Democrats. So you have an op coming on multiple fronts.”
Cernovich pointed to what he described as a contradiction in messaging from Church leadership:
“The Pope plays this game where he goes, well, of course a country can have a border… But then the bishops are on 60 Minutes going, these mass deportations are inhumane. Well, how can you have a border if you don’t have deportations?”
He continued, questioning the selectivity of moral outrage:
“Where’s the Pope’s moral authority when it comes to condemning official Democrat policies on abortion? You’re not seeing it. You’re seeing an op.”
Cernovich also criticized what he sees as a broader pattern of political alignment:
“Understand that we’re being attacked by false doctrine… You have to take the straight narrow path right in between that.”
On a recent segment on CNN, Hal Lambert, former director at Credit Suisse and manager at JP Morgan, laid it out crystal clear:
“100% political. Okay. This is all about trying to hurt President Trump’s Catholic vote during the midterms and Republicans during the midterms. If you look at what— play out the dots here. David Axelrod goes and visits Pope Leo last week… David Axelrod goes and visits Pope Leo last week. They’re talking about Obama going to visit Pope Leo. Pope Leo’s from Chicago. All of a sudden, now Pope Leo is out attacking Trump and the policies of the United States and Israel.”
Lambert continued:
“You have 3 cardinals come out today attacking the immigration policy. This is all about trying to get the Catholic vote against Trump… Axelrod is chief strategist for Obama. The pope is saying he’s not political? Why is he meeting with the chief strategist for both Obama’s campaign and in the White House?”
When challenged by a skeptical Abby Phillip, Lambert fired back without hesitation, pointing out the glaring double standard on foreign policy:
“Let me ask you this. Why Pope Leo been— when Iran killed 30,000-plus of their own citizens, he didn’t call out the Iranian regime at all. He said we need to stop violence. That was very milquetoast. That wasn’t calling out the Iranian regime. And yet he’s calling out the United States and Israel. Why is that?”
Exactly. Why the selective outrage?
WATCH:
HAL LAMBERT JUST CALLED IT OUT
“David Axelrod goes and visits Pope Leo…all of a sudden, now Pope Leo is out attacking Trump and the policies of the United States and Israel.”
“Axelrod is the chief strategist for Obama. The Pope was saying he’s not political. Why is he… pic.twitter.com/AQ4vwcoLty
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 14, 2026
Catholic voters handed Trump historic margins in 2024. The globalist left knows it. They also know that if they can peel away even a portion of that support by weaponizing the “American Pope,” they can flip key districts and slow down Trump’s America First agenda.
The post The Unholy Alliance? — Hal Lambert Raises Alarming Questions After Obama Strategist David Axelrod Spotted at Vatican as ‘American’ Pope Leo XIV Launches Attacks on President Trump appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.