(FOX NEWS) — President Donald Trump refused to apologize to Pope Leo XIV on Monday and doubled down on his criticism of the Pontiff.

The comments came after Trump was asked about a statement by Bishop Robert Barron saying the president owed the pope an apology for calling his politics “terrible.”

“No, I don’t [apologize], because Pope Leo said things that are wrong,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “He was very much against what I’m doing with with regard to Iran. And you can not have a nuclear Iran. Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result. You have hundreds of millions of people dead and it’s not going to happen. So I can’t, I think he’s very weak on crime and other things.”

“So I’m not I mean, he, he went public. I’m just responding to Pope Leo, and, you know, his brother is a big MAGA person, and he’s a great guy. Louis. And I said, I like Louis better than I like the Pope,” he added.