{"id":396680,"date":"2026-04-13T19:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396680\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T19:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:02:11","slug":"donald-trump-deletes-ai-image-of-himself-as-jesus-like-figure-after-drawing-global-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396680\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump deletes AI image of himself as Jesus-like figure after drawing global outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump’s post depicted him in white robe with hand on man’s headSome supporters criticise image, which was later deletedPope Leo says he has no fear of Trump administration\n<\/p>\n

The post on Trump\u2019s Truth Social platform came amid his escalating feud with Pope Leo, who has criticized the US-Israeli war against Iran as inhumane. Shortly before publishing the image, the president posted a lengthy screed against Pope Leo, calling him \u201cWEAK on crime and terrible for Foreign Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo, the first US-born pope, said in response to Trump\u2019s attacks that he had \u201cno fear\u201d of the Trump administration and would continue to speak out. In a forceful speech on Monday in Algiers, he denounced \u201cneocolonial\u201d world powers who are violating international law, without specifically referring to the United States.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s post, depicting Trump in a white robe with an apparently healing hand on a prone man’s head, could create a rift between Trump and the religious right, whose support was critical to his victory in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n

\"AI<\/p>\n

AI image posted by Donald Trump online.<\/p>\n

In the painting-like image, Trump holds a glowing orb in one hand and uses his other hand to touch a seemingly sick man on the forehead. The Statue of Liberty, fireworks, a fighter jet and eagles could be seen in the background.<\/p>\n

The post was removed on Monday morning. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Brilyn Hollyhand, who served as the co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council, wrote on X: \u201cThis is gross blasphemy. Faith is not a prop. You don\u2019t need to portray yourself as a saviour when your record should speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, who does not attend church regularly, won large majorities of Christian voters in the 2024 election. He made gains among Catholic voters, who backed him by a 56pc to 42pc margin after splitting more evenly in previous elections, according to an analysis by Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Washington University and a former pastor.<\/p>\n

\"AI<\/p>\n

AI image posted by Donald Trump online.<\/p>\n

News in 90 seconds – Monday, April 13th <\/p>\n

After Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in July 2024, some evangelical supporters said it was evidence he had been blessed by God.<\/p>\n

Last year, after the death of Pope Francis, Trump posted an image showing himself as pope, prompting outrage from many Catholics.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Leo has become one of the most prominent critics of the war in Iran, even making an unusual direct appeal to Trump and urging him to find an \u201coff-ramp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo has also said that Jesus cannot be used to justify war and that God rejects the prayers of those who start conflicts. Those remarks were widely seen as a rebuke to Trump officials like US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has cited scripture to justify the use of “overwhelming violence” against enemies and likened the rescue of a US airman inside Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Trump also feuded at times with Leo\u2019s predecessor, Francis, who publicly opposed Trump\u2019s deportation campaign as un-Christian.<\/p>\n

At least eight members of Trump’s cabinet are Catholic, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n

Bishop Robert Barron, who serves on a Trump-created religious liberty commission, said on X that the president owed Leo an apology for his “inappropriate” statements on social media. But he also praised Trump in the same post for his outreach to Catholics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump’s post depicted him in white robe with hand on man’s headSome supporters criticise image, which was later…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,898,80],"class_list":["post-396680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}