'Journalist's' Vance Derangement Syndrome Embarrassingly Takes Over After VP's Reaction to New Pope News

As RedState reported, the Catholic Church now has a new Pope, with Cardinal Robert Prevost being selected Thursday on the fourth ballot and announced roughly an hour after white smoke began blowing from the Sistine Chapel's chimney in Rome late in the afternoon local time.

Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, said during his speech to the world that "We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to receive like this square with its open arms, all, all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue and love."

Born in Chicago, Pope Leo XIV becomes the first ever American Pope.

Though there were some amusing hot takes on social media after news broke Thursday of the new Pope, there were also some congratulatory ones, as we saw from Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic who visited with Pope Francis in April, a day before the Pope's Easter Monday passing.

Here's what Vance wrote on the Twitter/X machine:

Congratulations to Leo XIV, the first American Pope, on his election! I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church. May God bless him!

Though one would think that there was nothing in Vance's statement to take issue with, at least one notable media figure did: "journalist" John Harwood, a former CNN "reporter" who thought this would be appropriate to tweet:

Vance is saying that he won't be among those praying for Pope Leo

spiteful because the Pope has exposed the emptiness of his religiosity https://t.co/3yXelbXfG1
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) May 8, 2025

As you can see, the Vance Derangement Syndrome sufferer was promptly corrected by Community Notes. There were also these responses:

The last sentence of the Vice President’s tweet is “May God bless him!”

Maybe John missed that part, or maybe he’s just an idiotic hack who was too deranged to keep a job even at the likes of CNN. Either way, I’ll be sure to pray for him. https://t.co/bHf3GkwDFt
— William Martin (@wsmartin218) May 8, 2025

Unbelievably deceptive, false interpretation of Vance's post. A new low for Harwood and that is saying a lot. https://t.co/QhCaVEwmTP
— LorieByrd (@LorieByrd) May 9, 2025

As I've noted before, of all the biased reporters and hosts at CNN, Harwood, in his role as White House correspondent, was perhaps the most shameless. We saw this, for instance, in his defending of then-President Joe Biden against accusations he was too old/unwell for the job, him being a shameless cheerleader for the bogusly named "Inflation Reduction Act," and him coming off as a full-fledged Biden apologist over his disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

None of that changed once Harwood announced his departure from CNN in Sept. 2022. In fact, it got worse, with Harwood's Twitter feed on any given day looking like something you'd see coming from the Biden White House comms staff. Worse, there was a lengthy thread where Harwood approvingly quoted an article written by a Slate journo who was trying to paint a picture of Biden being one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen.

In picking up where they left off as employees of CNN, former CNNers like Harwood keep proving the points conservative media critics made while they were there - that the network was biased against the right and framed their coverage accordingly. Though they are no longer with the "news" outlet, it's still worth highlighting their continued bias all the same for the record.

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