Trump again reminded about walls at the pope’s funeral

Sitting in front row, the president cannot have missed the mention

Pope Francis was outspoken in his comments about President Trump’s war on migrants. He repeatedly called on him and other leaders to show more compassion to migrants and implored Trump to “build bridges, not walls”.

The sentiment was echoed at the Pope’s funeral. In the words of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who led the ceremony: “Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice, imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions ... ‘Build bridges, not walls,’ was an exhortation he repeated many times.”

Trump’s presence was seen by European leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an opportunity to get some time with him. They were less interested in the wall with Mexico or the destruction of Gaza (which Pope Francis followed closely) than with developments in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy and Trump did meet privately, followed by a positive message from the Ukrainian leader. He later met with Italian PM Georgia Meloni who stressed "the urgency of an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, as well as the need for a concrete commitment by Moscow to launch a peace process".