President Donald Trump is losing support from his core base following another online stunt. Catholics say Trump used poor judgment when he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus the Great Healer laying hands on a sick man.
Trump removed the image from his Truth Social app a day after he posted it. He said people misconstrued the image as Jesus Christ. It’s an image of himself as a doctor healing the sick.
“This is gross blasphemy,” wrote Brilyn Hollyhand, the former chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council. “Faith is not a prop. You don’t need to portray yourself as a savior when your record should speak for itself.”
Trump’s supporters have expressed regret about casting their votes for him in 2024. They compared his administration to a runaway train. This latest stunt has pushed some of them over the edge.
Before posting himself as Jesus, Trump criticized Pope Leo XIV as “Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons.”
In response, the first American pope said he has “no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel.”
Pope Leo has been critical of Trump’s Iran war. Catholics are in an uproar over Trump’s verbal attacks on the pontiff.
After a DoorDash driver delivered his McDonald’s order on Monday, Trump told reporters that he would not apologize to the pope.
“There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong,” Trump said defiantly.
In response to another reporter asking if he owes the pope an apology, Trump said, “No, I don’t. Because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran.”
Trump added that Pope Leo would not be happy with a nuclear Iran. “To have hundreds of millions of people dead, that’s not gonna happen. I think he’s very weak on crime and other things… He went public, I was just responding to public Leo.”
“This is unprecedented criticism of a Pope from a US president,” said David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame.
“As to whether it will have a big effect on how US Catholic voters regard Trump, that is an open question,” Campbell added. “Given that attitudes toward the president are driven largely by people’s party preference — which is hard to move — it probably will not have a huge impact on Catholics’ attitudes toward Trump.”
Q: “(Bishop Robert Barron) now says you owe Pope Leo an apology. Will you apologize?”
TRUMP: “No, I don’t. Because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran.” pic.twitter.com/V7o0jXodPs
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 13, 2026
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