Washington DC - President Donald Trump continued his attacks on Pope Leo XIV over the pontiff's calls to end global wars, accusing him of overlooking Iran's crackdown on protesters earlier this year.

"Will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months, and that for Iran to have a Nuclear Bomb is absolutely unacceptable," Trump wrote late on Tuesday on Truth Platform, citing an outlandish death toll of January's brutally repressed protests.

Iran has repeatedly insisted it does not seek to obtain nuclear weapons.

Pope Leo has drawn the ire of the Trump administration for his condemnations of those promoting war, greed, and violence – a thinly-veiled reference to US-Israeli brutality in the Middle East.

The increasingly erratic president responded with an unprecedented rant against his compatriot, calling him "weak on crime." Angering millions of Christians and even parts of his own base, Trump also posted an AI-generated image of himself depicted as Jesus Christ healing a bedridden man.

Pope Leo had also sharply criticized Trump's threats to wipe out the entirety of Iranian civilization, calling them "truly unacceptable."

The unprovoked war launched by US and Israel on Iran has killed over 3,300 people, many of them civilians. At least 2,000 have been killed in Lebanon by a brutal Israeli campaign of destruction.