Following the death of Pope Francis, online users shared a rumor claiming U.S. President Donald Trump urged the Vatican to select the new pope from the cast of "Fox & Friends."
For example, on April 21, 2025 — the day Pope Francis died — one Facebook user shared the claim, "Trump Urges Vatican to Select New Pope from Cast of 'Fox & Friends.'"
(Gary Cone/Facebook)
Numerous other users also shared the same rumor on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads and X. Snopes readers also emailed about the rumor, with one person asking, "Did Trump actually suggest that a Fox & Friends host become pope?"
Some of the posts featured a link to an article (archived) from The Borowitz Report, which began as follows:
Trump Urges Vatican to Select New Pope from Cast of "Fox & Friends"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — Arguing that "it's the smartest way to go," Donald J. Trump urged the Vatican on Monday to select the next pope from the cast of "Fox & Friends."
"You want to have a pope who's good on TV," Trump said. "The 'Fox & Friends' people are the best TV people in the business."
Some users seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo produced no evidence of Trump suggesting the Vatican consider a "Fox & Friends" host as the new pope.
Rather, writer and comedian Andy Borowitz — a satirist — authors stories for The Borowitz Report. The website's "About" page (archived) specifically mentions its satirical content. For example, one section of the page reads, "I've been writing satirical news since I was eighteen. This represents either commitment to a genre or arrested development."
The fictional story spread in the months after Trump appointed former "Fox & Friends Weekend" host and military veteran Pete Hegseth to the position of secretary of defense, as well as former Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy — a former Fox Business host — as secretary of transportation.
Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims from The Borowitz Report in the past, including the assertion that Attorney General Pam Bondi fired a Department of Justice employee after she found a copy of the Constitution on his desk, as well as a rumor that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the stock market crash could be reversed if investors drank cod liver oil.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources calling their output humorous or satirical.