{"id":539818,"date":"2026-04-19T18:35:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/539818\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T18:35:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:35:34","slug":"trump-deletes-post-with-ai-image-of-himself-as-jesus-like-figure-after-outcry-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/539818\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump deletes post with AI image of himself as Jesus-like figure after outcry | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than a year after signing legislation that will pull nearly 12 million Americans off health insurance<\/a> by gutting Medicaid, Donald Trump<\/a> posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social on Sunday depicting him as a Jesus-like figure, with divine light emanating from his hands as he heals a stricken man in a hospital bed with a demon from hell floating in the background.<\/p>\n

The president has since deleted the post, which also followed a lengthy tirade about Pope Leo XIV on the site the same day in which he called him<\/a> \u201cweak on crime\u201d and blamed the head of the Catholic church for being influenced by Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod. Trump refused to apologize to the pope, saying: \u201cHe went public. I\u2019m just responding to Pope Leo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump faced the wrath of some of his most high-profile and loyal Christian supporters, many of whom have stood by the president through multiple other indiscretions and were unable to contain their righteous fury.<\/p>\n

Riley Gaines, a Fox News podcast host and conservative commentator, wrote on X<\/a> she \u201ccannot understand why he\u2019d post this\u201d.<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cIs he looking for a response? Does he actually think this? Either way, two things are true. 1) a little humility would serve him well 2) God shall not be mocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Megan Basham, a writer at the conservative Daily Wire, called the post<\/a> \u201cOUTRAGEOUS blasphemy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t 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,\u201d she wrote. She demanded Trump \u201ctake this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God\u201d.<\/p>\n

Isabel Brown, a host on the same outlet, said the image<\/a> was \u201cdisgusting and unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing matters more than Jesus,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThis post is, frankly, disgusting and unacceptable, but also a profound misreading of the American people experiencing a true and beautiful revival of faith in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Deace, a host at the rightwing BlazeTV, posted<\/a> a single word: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"'I‘I make people a lot better’: Trump says controversial AI image portrayed him as a doctor \u2013\u00a0video <\/p>\n

When reporters asked Trump whether he posted a picture depicting himself as Jesus Christ, Trump said \u201cit wasn\u2019t a depiction, it was me\u201d, though he insisted<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAnd I do make people better. I make people a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Republican member of congress from Georgia, captured a screenshot<\/a> of the Truth Social post before it was deleted, and said: \u201cI completely denounce this and I\u2019m praying against it!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

After widespread backlash, the AI image of Trump as a Jesus-like figure is no longer available on his Truth Social account. Photograph: TruthSocial<\/p>\n

The AI-generated image Trump shared, portraying him as the son of God, was not the original. The picture first appeared in early February, posted to X by Nick Adams<\/a>, a conservative commentator with a history<\/a> of sharing AI-generated, biblically themed Trump content. In Adams\u2019s version, a silhouette of a US soldier stands in the background. In Trump\u2019s version<\/a>, that soldier has been photoshopped into a demonic figure with horns looming behind the president as he performs his miracle.<\/p>\n

But the outrage was not just among high-profile media figures. Users on Truth Social \u2013 Trump\u2019s social platform where devoted supporters almost never dissent \u2013 have also turned on the president over the image.<\/p>\n

JD Vance, the vice-president, played down the Jesus-like image as \u201ca joke\u201d in an interview on Fox News on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, he took it down because he realized a lot of people weren\u2019t understanding his humor,\u201d Vance said of the post. Vance added it was sometimes better for the \u201cVatican to stick to matters of morality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump is engaged in a war of words<\/a> with Pope Leo, the first US-born pope in Catholic history, after Leo suggested, without naming the president, that a \u201cdelusion of omnipotence\u201d was driving US foreign policy, particularly surrounding the war with Iran.<\/p>\n

Trump responded by calling the pontiff \u201cWEAK on Crime\u201d, and saying he was \u201cnot a fan of Pope Leo\u201d and suggesting the leader of the world\u2019s 1.4 billion Catholics was \u201ccatering to the radical left\u201d. Leo, who was also outspoken about the carnage and catastrophes in Gaza, told reporters on the papal flight to Algeria that he did not fear the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,\u201d the pope said.<\/p>\n

US bishops have also rallied behind him, describing Leo not as a political opponent but as a \u201cvicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the gospel\u201d.<\/p>\n

The condemnation of Trump\u2019s attacks on the pope spread further: Italian politicians across the spectrum, including Matteo Salvini \u2013 the hard-right deputy prime minister and a longtime Trump admirer \u2013 said attacking the pope was neither useful nor intelligent. The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also condemned Trump\u2019s \u201cinsult\u201d, saying that depicting Jesus Christ as a vessel for political vanity was \u201cunacceptable to any free person\u201d and is a \u201cdesecration of Jesus\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s AI post not only comes after that spat, but one week after Easter Sunday for Catholics, and the morning after Easter Sunday for Orthodox Christians.<\/p>\n

The Gospel of Mark records<\/a> Jesus healing the sick, feeding the hungry and casting out demons. Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill , signed into law in 2025, will cut federal Medicaid spending by about $900bn over a decade <\/a>with children\u2019s hospitals warning the cuts will directly harm their most vulnerable patients.<\/p>\n

One user on X, Mandy Arthur<\/a>, captured the mood: \u201cGod, we might have made a mistake and accidentally elected the Antichrist. Send help.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was amended on 15 April 2026. An earlier version said \u201cMore than $1tn trillion of those cuts come from Medicaid\u201d; that should have said from Medicaid<\/a> and from the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a year after signing legislation that will pull nearly 12 million Americans off health insurance by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-539818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}