Donald Trump reportedly discussed the AI-generated image depicting him as Jesus Christ with an adviser before he posted it to Truth Social.
The president sparked national outrage among his base on Sunday when he shared an image of himself as a haloed messiah cupping light into a bedridden individual (who, by apparent coincidence, looked almost identical to comedian and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart).
But the idea may not have been his own. Trump reportedly discussed the picture with Bill Pulte, the controversial director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, before he shared it online, insiders told Axios.
Pulte and Trump were both in south Florida over the weekend. Pulte reportedly saw the image first and decided to share it with the president.
“Everyone thought it was a joke,” one person that advised the president about the image told Axios.
The Christian faction of the MAGA movement did not find it funny, however. Several self-identified Trump voters interviewed by MS Now said that they were “disgusted” and “ashamed” of the image, and further implied that they regretted voting for the self-identified Christian. (Reminder: While Trump has claimed the Bible is his “favorite book,” he couldn’t name a single passage from the text when prompted to do so in a 2019 interview.)
Trump deleted the image the day after he put it online, telling reporters that he believed it portrayed him as a doctor healing people.
It was a particularly bad time for the president to make a religious flub. That Sunday was Easter Sunday for Eastern Orthodox Christians. The previous Sunday, which was Easter for Catholics and Protestants, Trump threatened to completely annihilate Iranian civilization and wrote on Truth Social, “Praise be to Allah.”
Trump is also in the midst of a feud with Pope Leo XIV, who has upset the president and a number of Trump’s underlings by advocating for world peace. Last week, reports emerged that the Pentagon had openly threatened a Holy See ambassador in January, days after the pope made antiwar remarks during his “State of the World” address. Since then, the White House has issued several barbs directed at the pontiff, including claims that the religious leader is “weak on crime.”