The Latest: Rubio meets with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican after Trump’s criticism over Iran
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7:23 AM on Thursday, May 7
By The Associated Press
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed “efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East” in talks at the Vatican on Thursday aimed at easing tensions following U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Rubio met with Leo and then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a visit that lasted 2½ hours.
Also, Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Here's the latest:
The U.S. president hosted President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the White House on Thursday and said afterward that it went “very well.”
“We discussed many topics, including Trade and, specifically, Tariffs,” Trump said on social media. “Our Representatives are scheduled to get together to discuss certain key elements.”
Part of the bilateral meeting originally had been scheduled to be open to the press, but reporters were never invited in.
The two leaders met months after Trump hit Brazil with heavy tariffs and criticized the criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Trump later eased the tariffs, and the leaders began mending fences after a United Nations meeting last year.
The new voting districts approved Thursday could give Republicans a chance to win all nine of the state’s congressional seats in the November midterm elections.
Tennessee is the first state to adopt new districts since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week that significantly weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities.
President Donald Trump has urged more Republican-led states to redraw their districts in light of the court ruling. Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina also have taken steps toward redistricting.
Karoline Leavitt announced on social media Thursday that Viviana, or “Vivi,” joined her family on on May 1.
Leavitt and her husband, Nicholas Riccio, have an older son, Nicholas (or “Niko”).
“She is perfect and healthy, and her big brother is joyfully adjusting to life with his new baby sister,” Leavitt wrote in the post, which also included a photo of her with Vivi in her nursery. “We are enjoying every moment in our blissful newborn bubble.”
Leavitt has not indicated publicly how long she will take for her maternity leave. Other administration officials are expected to take the White House briefing room lectern in Leavitt’s absence; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who doubles as the president’s national security adviser, held a press briefing at the White House earlier this week.
Standing alongside Gulf allies, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz called on the U.N. Security Council -- more notably Iran’s allies, Russia and China -- to support a resolution that would condemn Tehran’s actions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and threaten sanctions if it does not release its chokehold.
The resolution -- put forth by the U.S. and Bahrain -- is the second attempt to punish Iran for leveraging its hold over the vital waterway since U.S. and Israeli strikes ignited the war in late February.
“So we’re giving the U.N. and the Security Council another chance to get back to basics, to uphold these basic principles,” Waltz said Thursday. ”...If aid fails to reach the very people that the countries in the council claim to care about, what does that really say for the U.N.? What does that say for these countries?”
Iran established the new government agency to approve transit and collect tolls from shipping in the strait, shipping data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence said Thursday. The move has raised concerns about eroding the freedom of navigation on which global trade depends.
The agency, called the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, is “positioning itself as the only valid authority to grant permission to ships transiting the strait,” Lloyd’s reported in an online briefing. Lloyd’s said the authority had emailed it an application form for ships seeking passage.
The Iranian effort to formalize control over the channel comes as hundreds of commercial ships remain bottled up in the Persian Gulf and unable to reach the open sea.
A group of Democratic U.S. senators have called for the U.S. Central Command to answer questions about American coordination with Israel in declaring broad “ evacuation zones ” in Lebanon and Iran, alleging the practice may violate international law.
The letter underlines how the Democratic Party — both its leaders and the base — has grown increasingly critical of Israel.
Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, the Israeli military has regularly issued maps covering large areas of territory along with warnings telling all residents of the zones to flee. Israel had previously used a similar approach in Gaza.
The senators said the sweeping warnings have “been used to permanently displace people and destroy homes and towns” and that some civilians who refused to leave their homes in the areas have been killed by subsequent strikes.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans for the closed-door talks, said the meeting would take place next week on May 14 and 15. The official did not specify the venue but the previous two rounds have taken place at the State Department and the White House.
The earlier rounds were led by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States, although Secretary of State Marco Rubio participated in both and President Trump greeted the participants at the second.
— Matthew Lee
The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on an Iraqi oil official, several Iraqi firms and leaders of Iran-backed militias accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions and finance militants.
The Treasury Department alleges that Iraq’s deputy oil minister, Ali Maarij Al-Bahadly, helped divert Iraqi oil and falsify documents so Iranian oil could be sold as Iraqi oil, benefiting Iran and allied militias.
“Treasury will not stand idly by as Iran’s military exploits Iraqi oil to fund terrorism against the United States and our partners,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Thursday.
The Vatican said the “need to work tirelessly in favor of peace” was discussed in talks Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who came to Rome on a fence-mending visit after President Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
During Rubio’s meeting with Leo, and the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America was reaffirmed,” the Vatican said.
In a statement, the Vatican said the two sides then exchanged views on current events “with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as on the need to work tirelessly in favor of peace.”
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are debating a plan that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.
Protesters shouted “No Jim Crow” outside the House and Senate chambers as lawmakers convened to consider the legislation. The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
1. 21 miles (34 kilometers) — This is the width of the Strait of Hormuz, which bends like an elbow, at its narrowest point between Iran and Oman. Ships follow narrow lanes to safely navigate the shallow water, making it even more of a chokepoint.
2. 20% — Before the war, a fifth of the world’s traded oil typically flowed through the Strait of Hormuz every day, as well as large supplies of natural gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products.
3. 50% — The amount that the average price of gas in the U.S. has risen since the war began. The average price of a gallon was $4.56 on Thursday, according to AAA. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also nearly doubled the cost of jet fuel.
4. 15,000 — The number of U.S. soldiers, accompanied by 100 aircraft, committed to enforce Project Freedom, according to the U.S. military. President Trump’s initiative to guide ships through the strait was paused Tuesday, just two days after he announced it.
5. 2 — The number of ships the U.S. said it successfully guided through the strait as part of Project Freedom.
The U.S. stock market is holding near its records as oil prices keep dropping on hopes that a deal may be nearing to allow tankers to carry crude once again from the Persian Gulf.
The S&P 500 added 0.1% early Thursday to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 193 points, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1%.
DoorDash jumped after reporting better results than expected. Whirlpool tumbled after reporting much weaker results than expected. The seller of home appliances said it would raise prices by at least 10% for some of its offerings, while accelerating cost cuts.
Supreme Court justices are not “political actors,” Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday, insisting unpopular court decisions are based solely on the law.
“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” he said. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”
His remarks to a conference of judges and lawyers from the 3rd U.S. Circuit in Pennsylvania came at a time of low public confidence in the court, and about a week after the court handed down a decision that hollowed out the Voting Rights Act.
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to take up a plan Thursday that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.
The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
The court ruled Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law. The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Pope Leo XIV and then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a visit that lasted 2½ hours.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Rubio and Leo discussed the situation in the Middle East “and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere. The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.
In a separate statement about the Parolin meeting, Pigott said the two diplomats discussed “ongoing humanitarian efforts in the Western Hemisphere and efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East. The discussion reflected the enduring partnership between the United States and the Holy See in advancing religious freedom,” the statement said.
Trump’s lawyer, hoping for an eventual Supreme Court victory, has asked a federal appeals court in New York to temporarily block a longtime columnist from collecting an $83 million defamation award.
The lawyer told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Tuesday to stay its decision supporting the award so that Trump won’t have to pay writer E. Jean Carroll while he appeals to the high court.
A Manhattan jury awarded Carroll the payout in January 2024. Another jury in May 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding Trump sexually abused her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in 1996 and then defamed her after she published her account of it in 2019.
Trump has vehemently denied sexually abusing Carroll or ever knowing her and has repeatedly accused her of making accusations against him for political purposes or to promote her memoir.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan, who represents Carroll, declined to comment through a spokesperson.
Trump’s proposal to put a coat of white paint on the exterior of a 19th-century historic landmark building next to the White House is slated for a hearing Thursday by a key federal agency, which he expects to approve what would be a dramatic makeover.
The National Capital Planning Commission is scheduled to begin considering the plan on Thursday, according to its meeting agenda. Trump calls for painting all or most of the Eisenhower building’s gray granite exterior with white paint. He last year called the gray a “really bad color.”
But the proposal has alarmed preservationists, architects, historians and others who argue that granite is not meant to be painted and that paint would trap moisture, deteriorate the stone and not solve problems the administration wants to fix.
The Trump administration’s approach to the Iran war over the past 24 hours has pinballed from declarations that a tenuous ceasefire was holding and military operations were over to new threats of bombing the Islamic Republic.
Tuesday started with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explaining how the U.S. military was protecting stranded ships so they could traverse the Strait of Hormuz.
That afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House that the military operation was “concluded” and that the U.S. achieved its objectives. But in almost the same breath, he said Trump was still seeking a “path of peace” that required Iran to agree to a deal to reopen the vital oil shipping corridor.
By Tuesday evening, Trump announced that the effort to protect ships was paused to see if an agreement could be reached. Then on Wednesday morning, he again warned that bombing would resume if Tehran didn’t agree to U.S. terms.
Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.
Hope that the two-month conflict could soon end buoyed international markets on Thursday, even as the U.S. military fired on an Iranian oil tanker attempting to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports hours earlier. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Trump posted on social media that the two-month war could soon end and that oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict could restart. But he said that depends on Iran accepting a reported agreement that he did not detail.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts,” Trump wrote.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a fence-mending visit to the Vatican on Thursday after President Donald Trump’s broadsides against Pope Leo XIV and the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran angered the Holy See and sparked ongoing sparring between the two American leaders.
Rubio, a practicing Catholic, had an audience scheduled with Leo, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. Leo has pushed back, calling out Trump’s misrepresentations of his views on Iran and nuclear weapons and insisting that he is merely preaching the biblical message of peace.
Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms. “Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.
Parolin said Washington had requested Rubio’s audience, and that the pope was open to continued dialogue.
