In a post on Truth Social Sunday, the president claimed that ABC News’s chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz had suggested that he’d had absolutely nothing to do with the selection of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost to be the next leader of the Catholic church.

White smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Thursday afternoon, indicating the cardinals had elected a successor to Pope Francis.

The contrast between President Trump and Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV couldn’t be more stark, politically, personally, or in their world views.

A plume of white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling a new pope has been selected following Francis’ death.

After his father died, Mark Charles Roudané, a retired Minnesota schoolteacher, began going through his dad’s papers. There were scores of binders, the records of a life as a prosperous, white, Presbyterian businessperson in the Midwest.

"I hope to be able to respond to [the challenges] with a healthy dialogue," said Cardinal Robert Prevost in 2023.

A bit later the pontiff added, “God bless you all.” The brief exchange, captured by NewsNation correspondent Robert Sherman as the pontiff made his way through a crowd at the Vatican on Monday, was just one of several viral moments from Leo XIV’s public debut.

Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S. pope, descends from Creole and free people of color in Louisiana, highlighting complex issues to race and class in American history.