In March 2026, a rumor circulated online that Pope Leo XIV called U.S. President Donald Trump "a vicious, old b****** draining America's soul" during a live TV broadcast.
For example, on March 14, a Facebook post (archived) read, "Pope Leo XIV Breaks His Silence on Live Television: Calls Donald Trump 'A Vicious Old B****** Draining America's Soul.'"
According to the Facebook post, Leo said of Trump, "A vicious old b****** and his political circus just turned millions of Americans into second-class citizens overnight — on the very ground they call home."
The claim continued to circulate on Facebook in the following days (archived, archived) and Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether the rumor was true.
We first used search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to locate possible evidence from credible sources about the pope's alleged scathing words about the U.S. president (archived, archived, archived, archived). If the story were true, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it. That was not the case.
The rumor was fictional. It circulated on Facebook groups and blog pages that use artificial intelligence tools to create inspiring or shocking stories about public figures. Therefore, we've rated this claim false.
Creators of such content capitalize on social media users' willingness to believe and share the made-up stories, profiting from advertising revenue on external websites to which the posts link. (Snopes has previously reported on the business strategy.)
In January 2026, fact-checking website Lead Stories found posts claiming at least 17 other sports stars and celebrities made the same exact statement about Trump. The posts appeared to be what Lead Stories called "Viet spam," a term the outlet coined for false stories spread by Facebook pages managed from Vietnam. Snopes, too, has reported on this practice. We found that this misinformation technique is used in numerous countries, including, but not limited to, India and the Philippines.
We contacted a manager of one Facebook page that posted an early version of the alleged quote attributed to Leo to ask why it had created the false story without a disclaimer to note its inauthenticity. That page had a contact number with a country code from Vietnam (+84). We will update this story if we receive a response.
(Facebook)
The posts spreading the false rumor about Leo's reported words about Trump include links in the comment sections to various blog posts.
Those blog posts have several indications of featuring AI-generated text. Most notably, the posts
Snopes has looked into similar rumors before. For example, in March 2026, we debunked claims that celebrities like Barbra Streisand and the climate campaigner Greta Thunberg had brain cancer. We also fact-checked another rumor originating from Guided by Grace, in which the page claimed Leo said about Trump, "Do not let power turn leaders into kings."