Donald Trump says he hopes Pope Leo will 'get better fast' after lung cancer diagnosis

Donald Trump has said he hopes Pope Leo XIV will "get better fast" after the Pontiff's lung cancer diagnosis.

The President told reporters he hoped the Pope would recover after he underwent surgery to remove a nodule on his lung.

The Illinois-born Pope and the Commander-in-Chief have previously been at odds.

Mr Trump had accused Pope Leo of being "terrible for foreign policy" and "weak on crime" earlier this year.

But the President struck a more conciliatory tone as he told reporters in Bullhead City, Arizona he gave his "love and best wishes" to the Pontiff.

He said: "I want to see Pope Leo get well. I hear the prognosis for that type of a problem, it's cancer. It's big stuff any time you have cancer."

The brother of Pope Leo, Louis Prevost, is a noted supporter of the President and has previously admitted the two "disagree on some things".

Mr Trump added: "His brother's a friend of mine who's a great - he's a fantastic guy. And his wife, you know, they're big Trump supporters. They have Maga all over their house.

"And I can say that his brother loves him a lot, loves the Pope a lot. And that's good. That's good enough for me. But, I just want to wish him well, get better fast."

Pope Leo is now awake and walking around his room but is expected to remain in hospital for a week.

His eldest brother, Louis, is recovering from multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.

The President's feud with the head of the Vatican began in April in a scathing Truth Social post in which Mr Trump claimed Pope Leo would not have become the leader of the Catholic Church without him in the White House.

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Mr Trump also posted an AI-generated image appearing to depict himself as Jesus Christ - although he claimed he was a "doctor". He soon deleted the post.

Pope Leo has consistently spoken out against the Iran war, declaring that the world was being "ravaged by a handful of tyrants" in what some interpreted as a shot towards the President.

The Pontiff later said those comments, made in a speech in Cameroon, were not directed towards the President.

The Vatican declined to join Mr Trump's so-called "Board of Peace", saying the United Nations should be the international body which "manages these crisis situations".

The Catholic leader has also called for a "deep reflection" in the US about the treatment of migrants, and, more recently, has said AI must be "disarmed", warning that it lowers the "threshold for resorting to violence".

Donald Trump is a noted user and defender of AI - which he calls "super intelligence" - saying Governments should not "rein it in".

A number of world leaders have given their best wishes to the Pope, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Argentine Prime Minister Javier Milei.

The King has also written to the Pope to offer his best wishes, GB News understands.