The president was accused of “blasphemy” by evangelical Christians who have been his more ardent supporters.
A social media backlash wasn’t enough to persuade President Donald Trump to apologize or back down from his feud with Pope Leo XIV.
But he did remove the AI-generated image he posted of himself as a Christ-like figure, after some of his most ardent Christian supporters accused him of blasphemy.
“I don’t know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” Megan Basham, a prominent conservative Protestant Christian writer and commentator, posted on X. “But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”
Even some in the right-wing media sphere were aghast.
“I support Trump, and I spend 8 hours a day defending him. I will not defend blasphemy,” conservative political commentator Cam Higby posted on X, urging the president to take the post down.
The image depicted Trump in a white robe with a red sash, with one hand on the forehead of a bedridden man. An orb of light floats in the president’s other hand, along with an American flag and the Statue of Liberty in the background.
The response was swift.
“Why?” posted Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer turned conservative podcaster who has led the charge against trans women in sports. “Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?”
Gaines wrote that “a little humility would serve him well,” before concluding, “God shall not be mocked.”
Trump confirmed Monday that he personally put up the image but insisted he thought it portrayed him as a doctor “making people better.”
“Only the fake news could come up with that one, so I just heard about it, and I said, ‘How did they come up with that?’” he said. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor.”
In an interview with CBS News on Monday, Trump expanded on why he took down the post.
“Normally I don’t like doing that, but I didn’t want to have anybody be confused,” he said. “People were confused.”
Trump denied being swayed by the criticism, saying he “didn’t listen to Riley Gaines” and that he’s “not a big fan.”
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The White House has not responded to questions about the post. But it vanished on the same day that the Religious Liberty Commission, a body Trump set up to ostensibly defend religious freedom, was scheduled to meet.
The offending post appeared online shortly after Trump went after Leo, who has been critical of the war on Iran.
“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that called the leader of the Catholic Church “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Leo, the first American pope, later responded he has “no fear of the Trump administration.”
David Gibson, who is director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University in New York City, said Trump’s attack on Leo “makes zero sense politically.”
“American presidents, and American Catholics, have often disagreed with the popes, not just with Leo,” he said. “But disrespect like this is different from disagreement. This is uncharted territory.”
In r/catholicism, a Reddit community dedicated to the Christian denomination, moderators created a “megathread“ to corral the discussion on the recent spat between the pope and the president. The thread had more than 1,500 comments as of Monday afternoon, making it one of the most-discussed topics in the 18-year history of the subreddit.
In the CBS interview, Trump said he believes he has “done more for the Catholic Church than any president in the last hundred years.”
Gibson said it’s not gone unnoticed that the post that deeply offended his “key base,” evangelical Christians, is gone, “yet the blast against Pope Leo remains.”
“That is telling, and also complicates the future patch for Trump’s would-be political heirs, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, both Catholics,” he said.
Vance, in particular, has frequently mentioned that he is the first Catholic convert to serve as vice president, and he represented the U.S. last year at Leo’s inaugural mass.
But Trump also risks alienating white evangelicals, a group that continues to strongly back the president but whose support has been slipping of late, recent polls show.
The Trump administration has curried favor with evangelicals by unleashing the Justice Department to go after what it deems anti-Christian discrimination. Earlier this month, NBC News reported that the department was putting the final touches on a report that casts the Biden DOJ as anti-Christian over its enforcement of laws protecting abortion clinics and enforcement of Covid regulations.
Trump and his backers have often reached for religious iconography to defend a president who claims to be a nondenominational Christian but was rarely seen at church until he became president and famously — and wrongly — identified his favorite biblical passage as “Two Corinthians” during a 2016 appearance at Liberty College.
Trump has claimed repeatedly that God “spared him” after two assassination attempts in 2024.
Back in 2019, during his first term as president, Trump described himself as “the chosen one” while fielding a question about the trade war with China. He later said he “was kidding, being sarcastic, and just having fun.”
And over the years, supporters have compared Trump to biblical figures like King David, calling him a flawed figure chosen by God to lead the country.
Trump has even been compared to the king of a land that the U.S. is currently at war with — Iran.
Lance Wallnau, a conservative evangelical Christian preacher in Dallas, said he has in sermons called Trump the modern version of Cyrus, who ruled ancient Persia some 600 years before Jesus was born.
“Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, whom I’ve anointed,” Wallnau told his flock. “Donald Trump has an anointing upon him. The hand of God is on him.”
‘Unacceptable’: Italian PM Slams Trump’s Pope Comments
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni unequivocally criticized President Donald Trump Monday for engaging in a bizarre feud with Pope Leo XIV, calling Trump’s attacks “unacceptable.”
“I find President Trump’s words regarding the Holy Father to be unacceptable,” Meloni, a close ally of Trump, said in a terse written statement.
“The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal for him to call for peace and to condemn every form of war,” she concluded.
Trump went after the pope in a lengthy social media message over the weekend, calling him “WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy,” apparently in response to Leo using his office to support the idea of global peace.
Leo didn’t appear to troubled by the attack.
“The message of the church, my message, the message of the Gospel: Blessed are the Peacemakers. I do not look at my role as being political, a politician,” he said.
Trump, meanwhile, responded by posting an image depicting himself as Jesus Christ. He deleted it after it was condemned as blasphemous, then implausibly claimed the image wasn’t of Jesus but “me as a doctor.”
Hillary Clinton: Trump’s ‘Unhinged’ Social Media Posts ‘Disgraceful’
Monday on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called President Donald Trump’s “unhinged” social media posts “disgraceful.”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski said, “We had, for example, since Easter Sunday and through today, really some, some would call profane posts by the president. And I just wonder how that fits into staying focused. On the Easter Sunday message the president threatening to decimate a civilization. And then just, I think overnight posting and a himself as Jesus, does reaction to that fit into the message? And what is your reaction?”
Clinton said, “Absolutely. I mean, we need to hold leaders accountable for what they say as well as what they do, because words, especially from an American president, have real consequences. And when you look at the last week of unhinged rants coming from Trump’s social media account, it’s just disgraceful.”
She continued, “I mean, threatening civilizational genocide, threatening Pope Leo, threatening the values. You know, I want to get back to this point. You know, you hear Trump and Vance and these people prattle on and on about Western civilization. I don’t think they’ve ever taken a course in Western civilization.”
She added, “Western civilization has a real meaning. It is a meaning about our values, our institutions. This country of ours is a result of the development over centuries of Western civilization. It is about how we hold leaders accountable so they don’t become autocrats and dictators and how they don’t lead us into, you know, reckless wars and really unhinged attacks.”
Trump, 79, Raises Fresh Health Concerns After Unbelievable Mix-Up
Donald Trump’s critics are pointing to one explanation for the president’s apparent mix-up of Jesus Christ and a Red Cross doctor: cognitive decline.
After the president, 79, was lambasted—including by some in his MAGA base—for sharing a now-deleted post depicting him as Jesus, he offered a puzzling explanation.
“It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better,” the president said of the AI-generated image on Monday afternoon.
The image, posted to Truth Social late Sunday night, portrays Trump as Christ, laying his hand on a patient in a hospital bed as if healing him. He is surrounded by other figures, including a nurse, a soldier, and a praying woman. Also visible are the U.S. flag, several bald eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and the Lincoln Memorial.
“I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support,” he said, adding, “Only the fake news could come up with that one.”
Many appeared unconvinced by his half-baked explanation, prompting renewed speculation about Trump’s cognitive health.
The White House did not respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment on the now-deleted post.
“The best-case interpretation of this is that the dementia is getting worse,” Hemant Mehta, a political commentator, shared with his over 100,000 X followers.
“He is so mentally deficient it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between his delusions and disorders on one hand, and his deceit and distractions on the other,” another user who identifies as “Duty To Warn,” piled on.
Another X user renewed calls for the 25th Amendment, which would forcibly remove the president from office.
“25th Amendment. NOW! I thought Biden was loosing it, but this is on a whole different level,” the user, who identifies as “Paddy,” wrote.
Throughout his second term, the Daily Beast has extensively reported on Trump’s declining health, as the president is seen frequently napping during Cabinet meetings, having mental slip-ups, slurring his words, and suffering from swollen ankles.
However, the president shared his Christ-like post immediately after he raged against Pope Leo XIV in a 353-word Truth Social screed, where he referred to the American pontiff as “weak” for opposing his war on Iran, and accused him of catering to the “Radical Left.”
“Leo should be thankful,” Trump raged, claiming that the Chicago-native “wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
On Monday morning, an unruffled Pope Leo responded to the president’s 334-word Truth Social screed by doubling down in his criticism of Trump and Israel’s war on Iran.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do,” the pontiff told reporters aboard the papal flight to Algiers—the start of an 11-day trip to four African countries.
When asked about Trump’s Truth Social website itself, the pope offered his own wry remark. “It’s ironic—the name of the site itself. Say no more,” he added.
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