Florida Sen. Marco Rubio defended Donald Trump after the GOP front-runner was on the receiving end of comments from Pope Francis on Thursday.
Appearing on CNN, Rubio told host Jake Tapper that a potential wall along the border, which Trump has long advocated, is not just to keep illegal immigrants out, but also potential terrorists and to help stop drug smuggling into the country. The Florida senator also touted the U.S. as the most “generous” country when it comes to legal immigration.
“As far as building walls on the border, the wall is not just about immigrants,” Rubio said. “It’s also about, potentially, terrorists crossing that border, not to mention the drugs that are coming across that border and the human trafficking that’s occurring because people know they can get people across the border. So it’s a complicated and complex issue.”
“I think the Holy Father recognizes or should recognize — and I believe he does — how generous America is,” Rubio said. “We accept, every year, close to a million or over a million people every year as permanent residents of the United States,” Rubio said. “No other country in the world even comes close.”
Within minutes, Trump fired back at the pontiff, who had just held mass in Mexico at a town near the border, calling the comments “disgraceful.”
“For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” he said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds a key primary on Saturday. “I am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened.”
Earlier in the day, the pontiff appeared to criticize Trump.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel,” Francis told reporters in his native Spanish. “I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.”
Fellow candidate Jeb Bush, a consistent Trump critic, also sided with the real estate mogul, telling reporters that he will not question anyone’s faith. Bush added that Trump’s faith, rather, is between “he and his creator.”
