U.S. presidents mourned the death of Pope Francis, who served as the leader of the Catholic Church for 12 years, on Monday following the Vatican’s announcement of the pope’s passing. 

‘Rest in Peace Pope Francis!’ President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Monday. ‘May God Bless him and all who loved him!’

The College of Cardinals elected Pope Francis, 88, to serve as the pope following Pope Benedict XVI in March 2013. His election marked the first time a non-European served as pope in more than 1,000 years. Pope Francis, born with the name Jorge Mario Bergoglio, originally hailed from Argentina. 

Pope Francis, who was hospitalized in February due to complications stemming from bronchitis and pneumonia, died Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. 

Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, met with Pope Francis on Sunday in one of the reception rooms of the Vatican hotel just hours before the pope’s death. Vance acknowledged the visit in a post on X Monday while expressing his condolences to Christians who loved the pope, and shared a link to the transcript of one of the pope’s 2020 homilies. 

‘My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him. I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill,’ Vance said in a post on X on Monday. ‘But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful. May God rest his soul.’

Trump also signed an executive order Monday ordering all U.S. flags be flown at half-staff on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels to remember Francis. The order also applies to all U.S. embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

Here’s a look at Pope Francis’ legacy with other U.S. leaders:

Barack Obama

Pope Francis met with former President Barack Obama at the Vatican in March 2014. The two met again in September of the following year during Pope Francis’ visit to the White House, where the pope delivered a statement urging action on climate change. Following his visit to the White House, Francis also visited New York City and Philadelphia. 

Obama issued a statement Monday morning lauding the pope for his leadership. 

‘In his humility and his gestures at once simple and profound – embracing the sick, ministering to the homeless, washing the feet of young prisoners – he shook us out of our complacency and reminded us that we are all bound by moral obligations to God and one another,’ Obama said in a post on X Monday morning. 

‘Today, Michelle and I mourn with everyone around the world – Catholic and non-Catholic alike – who drew strength and inspiration from the Pope’s example,’ Obama said. ‘May we continue to heed his call to ‘never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope.’’

Donald Trump

Trump met with Pope Francis in 2017 during a trip to the Vatican, and told reporters later that they had a ‘fantastic meeting.’ However, the two remained at odds with one another over Trump’s border policies for the last decade. 

‘A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,’ Pope Francis said in February 2016 amid Trump’s push on the campaign trail to build a border wall and crack down on illegal immigration. 

In response, Trump said: ‘For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.’

Pope Francis routinely issued similar statements, and in February penned a letter to U.S. Catholic bishops and voiced concern about the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans. 

‘The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,’ Pope Francis said in the letter. 

Joe Biden

Former President Joe Biden, the second Catholic U.S. president, visited the Vatican in October 2021, where he and Pope Francis met to discuss topics including climate change and advocacy for the poor, according to a readout of the meeting. 

Biden had previously met Pope Francis on several other occasions, including during the pope’s visit to the U.S. in 2015. 

Biden also met with Pope Francis in June at the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Apulia, Italy, where the two discussed the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, according to a readout of the meeting. 

Biden, who awarded Pope Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January, described him as a ‘consequential’ leader on Monday who was a ‘Pope for everyone.’ 

‘He was unlike any who came before him,’ Biden said in a post on X Monday morning. ‘Pope Francis will be remembered as one of the most consequential leaders of our time and I am better for having known him. For decades, he served the most vulnerable across Argentina and his mission of serving the poor never ceased. As Pope, he was a loving pastor and challenging teacher who reached out to different faiths.’

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

The State Department is pushing back against criticism of its changes to the process of reporting human rights abuses. 

NPR reported last week that the Trump administration was scaling back annual reports meant to inform congressional decisions on allocating foreign aid to countries, claiming the State Department was ‘changing its mind on what it calls human rights.’ 

Fox News Digital is told the 2024 Human Rights Report has been restructured to remove redundancy, increase readability, and return the focus to human rights abuses – instead of a ‘laundry list of politically biased demands and assertions.’ 

‘NPR’s report that the State Department is scaling back the Human Rights Report is misleading and misguided,’ a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital. ‘This year’s modifications are critical for removing report redundancy, increasing readability, maintaining consistency to U.S. statutes, and returning focus to human rights issues rather than political bias.’

Fox News Digital is told the restructuring of the reports ‘will be more responsive to legislative mandates that underpin the report’ and ‘does not reflect a change in U.S. policy on promoting respect for human rights around the globe or in any particular country.’ The State Department notably has attempted to streamline the reports to better align with statutory requirements under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

NPR and Politico reported on an internal memo that purportedly showed the 2024 Human Rights Report, which was finished in January but has been adjusted under the new administration, will no longer include references to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or sections on discrimination or abuse against the LGBTQ+ community. 

The annual reports – known as ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices’ – normally come out in March or April. NPR said sections that called out countries for ‘forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country’ or the ‘serious harassment of human rights organizations’ would be absent this year. NPR also stressed that prior reports had sections detailing countries’ ‘involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices,’ ‘arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy,’ ‘serious restrictions to internet freedom,’ ‘extensive gender-based violence,’ and ‘violence or threats of violence targeting people with disabilities,’ but the new report would not.

Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International, USA, criticized the changes under the Trump administration. He told NPR: ‘What this is, is a signal that the United States is no longer going to [pressure] other countries to uphold those rights that guarantee civic and political freedoms – the ability to speak, to express yourself, to gather, to protest, to organize.’ 

During President Donald Trump’s first term, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited what he categorized as a ‘proliferation of human rights’ on the global stage. 

‘We wanted to go back to first principles, back to our founding documents, our Declaration of Independence, our Bill of Rights to focus on those things that are central to the understanding of rights here in America,’ he said in July 2020. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is overseeing changes at the department during Trump’s second term. Last week, he announced the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which he accused of costing taxpayers more than $50 million per year and spending ‘millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.’ 

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s announcement that REAL IDs will be required to fly starting May 7 has forced Americans to finally get compliant – 20 years after Congress passed the law. 

On May 11, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the REAL ID Act into law to enhance national security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Passed by the U.S. Congress, the act set federal standards for issuing identification cards, like driver’s licenses.

Starting next month, REAL ID will be required to access federal facilities, enter nuclear power plants and board commercial aircraft. REAL ID’s rollout has faced nearly two decades of political pushback, setbacks and delays. 

In the two years after it was passed, the National Governors Association (NGA), the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) called for delaying its implementation, citing logistical concerns. 

Since its passing, states and advocacy groups have rejected its implementation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – a longtime opponent of REAL ID implementation – called it ‘discriminatory, expensive, burdensome, invasive, and ultimately counterproductive’ in 2007 as disapproval grew nationwide. By 2009, at least 25 states had enacted legislation opposing the REAL ID Act.

States rejected REAL ID for a range of reasons, including costs, states’ rights and privacy concerns. Three years after the law was passed, REAL ID’s first deadline was set for May 11, 2008. But in the face of opposition, DHS extended the deadline to May 11, 2011, under President Barack Obama’s administration. 

DHS later implemented a four-phase plan that extended beyond the 2011 deadline. By 2016, 23 states were fully compliant with the REAL ID Act, 27 states and territories were granted extensions, and six were noncompliant without extensions, according to a DHS letter. 

By Jan. 22, 2018, travelers would no longer be allowed to use a state-issued ID for domestic travel, and by Oct. 1, 2020, REAL ID ‘or another acceptable form of identification’ would be required for domestic air travel. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump extended the REAL ID deadline to Oct. 1, 2021. That deadline was later extended to May 3, 2023, by President Joe Biden’s administration ‘due to circumstances resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.’

The Biden administration finally extended the deadline to May 7, 2025, to give states ‘additional time to ensure their residents have driver’s licenses and identification cards that meet the security standards established by the REAL ID Act.’

Noem announced the May 7, 2025, deadline would hold as the Trump administration seeks to prevent illegal immigrants from traveling within the United States.

‘Starting May 7, you will need a REAL ID to fly. REAL IDs make identification harder to forge, thwarting criminals and terrorists. If you plan to fly, make sure you get a REAL ID so you won’t be denied from your flight or face travel delays!’ Noem said. 

The commander of Fort McCoy was relieved of duty after the U.S. Army base failed to install photos of President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on a wall displaying their chain of command. 

Col.  Sheyla Baez Ramirez was suspended as garrison commander of Ft. McCoy in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. ‘This suspension is not related to any misconduct,’ the U.S. Army Reserve Command said in a statement, ‘We have no further details to provide at this time while this matter is under review.’

Hegseth on Sunday reposted an X post claiming: ‘Commander of Fort McCoy, whose base chain-of-command board was missing photos of Trump, Vance and Hegseth, has been SUSPENDED.’

It came after the Defense Department (DOD) announced a probe into why a wall displaying the chain of command had empty frames on the wall where Trump, Vance and Hegseth’s images would typically be displayed. 

A new image they posted of the wall showed the frames had been filled. 

‘Regarding the Ft. McCoy Chain of Command wall controversy…. WE FIXED IT! Also, an investigation has begun to figure out exactly what happened,’ the department’s rapid response account posted on X. 

Ramirez assumed the garrison commander role in ​​July of last year. 

Previously, she had served as chief of the Reserve Program, United States Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and in other roles throughout the Army and Army Reserves.

The move came after a series of leadership shake-ups across the U.S. military. Earlier this month, the Pentagon fired the base commander for Pituffik Space Force Base in Greenland after she ‘undermined’ Vance. 

After the vice president’s visit, Col. Susannah Meyers emailed base personnel on March 31, writing, ‘I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.’

She added that she had ‘spent the weekend thinking about Friday’s visit — the actions taken, the words spoken, and how it must have affected each of you.’ 

The Space Force said in a public statement Meyers had been relieved of command ‘due to loss of confidence in her ability to lead.’ 

‘Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties,’ the statement read. 

And Hegseth fired four former aides after in-fighting and a leak investigation came to a head late last week. 

The secretary blamed ‘disgruntled employees’ for leaking reports about a second Signal chat that discussed Houthi strikes, this one including his wife, brother and personal lawyer on the chain.

With President Donald Trump’s former reality TV show ‘The Apprentice,’ streaming on Amazon Prime as of last month, politically astute viewers across the political spectrum have zeroed in on an episode from when Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., now one of the president’s biggest political detractors, praised his fellow New Yorker as a business prodigy.

During Season 5, Episode 8, of ‘The Apprentice’ in 2006, contestants were given a challenge — as was typical during each episode — and the winners of said challenge got the chance to fly to the nation’s capital and have breakfast with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. During the breakfast, Schumer sought to draw parallels between his family and Trump’s, while also showering praise on the president, telling the contestants he always knew Trump, even as a young person, ‘was going to go places.’

‘I was born in Brooklyn, the same place where Donald Trump’s family comes from,’ Schumer reminisced with the contestants during breakfast at the famous Hay-Adams hotel in Washington, D.C. ‘His father, and my grandfather, were builders together in Brooklyn.’

‘Wow!?’ one contestant could be heard replying. ‘Really?’ asked another.

‘Yeah!,’ Schumer responded to the room. 

The show then cut to Schumer lauding Trump as a business prodigy.

‘Even when [Trump] was much younger, you knew that he was going to go places,’ Schumer said, before a voice-over from one of the contestants present at the breakfast reiterated that ‘Sen. Schumer and Mr. Trump are good friends.’

Despite Schumer’s apparent friendly sentiment towards the president in 2006, as evidenced by his appearance on ‘The Apprentice,’ the Democratic New York senator told Politico in 2016, ahead of Trump’s first term, that, ‘[Trump] was not my friend.’ Rather, Schumer described his relationship with Trump as a ‘casual acquaintance.’

‘Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man,’ Schumer said of the president during an interview last month. ‘The fact that The Apprentice President Donald ‘You’re Fired’ Trump is refusing to hold people accountable just shows how weak he is,’ Schumer added in a post on social media earlier this month.

Considering Schumer’s vehement animosity towards Trump today, Michigan State GOP Sen. Aric Nesbitt, the Michigan Senate’s minority leader, remarked ‘How things change…’ in a post that highlighted the resurfaced clip of Schumer’s scene on ‘The Apprentice.’  

But it’s not just Republicans having fun at Schumer’s expense. 

‘As Schumer sells out our Constitution and democracy, you just gotta watch this clip of him sucking up to Trump on an episode of the Apprentice,’ remarked former Democratic Rhode Island legislator Aaron Regunberg. ‘What a world class slug of a man.’

Shortly before taking office during his first term, Trump was asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about whether he will be able to get along with Democratic leaders in Congress, such as Schumer. Trump struck a positive chord, saying at the time that he thought he would ‘be able to get along well with Chuck Schumer.’

‘I was always very good with Schumer. I was close to Schumer in many ways,’ Trump said at the time.

As time has progressed, however, Trump’s rhetoric towards Schumer has become increasingly critical of the senator, as the pair of political heavyweights continue to fight over whatever political issue is dominating Washington each week. 

Recently, Trump took a jab at Schumer’s alleged lack of support for the Jewish community amid the rise in antisemitism, particularly on college campuses, in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks against innocent Israelis. Schumer is Jewish. 

‘Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned,’ Trump told reporters from the Oval Office last month. ‘He’s become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore.’ 

Trump’s comments from earlier this month also mirror a similar sentiment he relayed about Schumer during his most recent campaign for the presidency, referring to him as a ‘proud member of Hamas.’

In addition to Schumer, other high-profile public figures have praised the now-president, only to become his political enemy years later. In a 1988 interview with Oprah Winfrey, the celebrity talk show host appeared to be amazed at Americans’ ‘fascination’ with Donald Trump and even described him as a ‘folk hero’ for being so popular. 

Meanwhile, celebrity music producer who co-founded Def Jam Records, Russell Simmons, similarly had nice things to say about Trump before he entered politics, calling him ‘very nice’ and remarking how supportive Trump has been to his family, according to media reports. Nonetheless, following the tragic politically motivated violence in Charlottesville during Trump’s first term, Simmons reportedly criticized his ‘friend’ for leading the legacy of a ‘great divider,’ and a ‘destroyer of the environment and … everything we as Americans have fought so hard to call ours.’     

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment but did not receive a reply in time for publication.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., on Monday signaled he wouldn’t tolerate Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly once again sharing sensitive information about military operations in a Signal group chat. 

‘If the reporting is true, this is unacceptable. I would never tell the White House what to do, but I wouldn’t tolerate it,’ Bacon told Fox News Digital, reiterating his comments first reported by Politico. 

Bacon, a retired military officer and Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said it would be ‘unacceptable’ if Hegseth sent classified information in a Signal chat about a mission in Yemen targeting the Houthis. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Hegseth shared information about the March 15 strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, claiming they were essentially the same plans shared in the separate Signal chat that included an editor of The Atlantic. 

Bacon told Politico he had reservations about Hegseth’s experience since his nomination, and while a spokesperson for Bacon’s office emphasized to Fox News Digital that he would not tell President Donald Trump to fire Hegseth, Bacon said he ‘wouldn’t tolerate’ the latest Hegseth reporting if he was the commander in chief. 

White House officials have joined Hegseth in denying the reporting. 

‘No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same nonstory, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared. Recently fired ‘leakers’ are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the president’s agenda, but the administration will continue to hold them accountable,’ White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital.

Trump himself shut down the reporting, calling it ‘fake news’ and touting recruitment rates and Hegseth’s leadership of the armed forces.

‘The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News on Monday. 

Hegseth lamented ‘disgruntled employees’ and ‘anonymous smears’ when pressed by reporters during the White House Easter Egg roll about the latest Signal controversy.

‘This is why we’re fighting the fake news media. This group right here is full of hoaxsters,’ Hegseth said.

The Trump administration has maintained that no classified material was transmitted in the Signal chat reported by The Atlantic. Signal is an encrypted messaging app with additional security measures that keep messages private to those included in the correspondence.

Fox News Digtal’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

President Trump indicated Monday – following news of Pope Francis’s death – that he and first lady Melania Trump will be attending the Pope’s funeral at the Vatican, despite the president’s somewhat contentious history with the late leader of the Catholic Church.

Traditionally, papal funerals take place four to six days following their death, so Francis’s funeral is expected to take place before the end of the month. Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni told reporters that the General Congregation of Cardinals will occur Tuesday morning, during which an exact date for the funeral should be decided.

‘Melania and I will be going to the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome,’ Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday afternoon. ‘We look forward to being there!’

Trump’s announcement that he would be traveling to Rome for the ceremony followed a separate announcement he made earlier in the day indicating that he had ordered all American flags on government grounds, including military installments and embassies abroad, to fly at half-staff until sunset Monday.

Trump’s relationship with Pope Francis over the years was one marked by ideological differences and – at times – tension.

Amid Trump’s first run for office, Pope Francis criticized one of Trump’s signature campaign promises of building a wall along the southern border, calling the move ‘not Christian’ in 2016.

‘A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,’ Francis told reporters during a mid-flight interview on his way to Mexico in 2016, according to a translation from the Associated Press.

Trump, meanwhile, shot back at the pontiff’s remarks, arguing it was ‘disgraceful’ for the Pope, or any religious leader for that matter, to question another person’s faith. 

‘If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened,’ Trump said in a statement released by his team following the Pope’s criticism. ‘ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians.’

During Francis’s life he also took aim at increasing nationalistic sentiments around the world, criticism that implicitly targeted Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda. 

Francis was also a believer in climate change posing a major problem for society, something Trump also differed with him on. In both Trump’s first and second terms, he has pulled the U.S. out of the international Paris Climate Accords, which is an international initiative aimed at mitigating global warming. 

Trump, who considers himself a Christian but is not a Catholic, only met with Francis once during his first term. By contrast, Joe Biden, who is a confirmed Catholic, met with Francis in-person on multiple occasions throughout his single-term presidency. 

Trump’s Vice President J.D. Vance, a Catholic himself, was notably one of the Pope’s last visitors, seeing him on Easter Sunday – one day before Francis passed.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.