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United States President Donald Trump has taken down an AI-generated image he posted on Truth Social depicting himself as a Jesus Christ-like figure, after the image sparked fierce backlash from several of his prominent Christian supporters.The now-deleted post, shared on Sunday, showed Trump bathed in divine light, healing a man in a hospital bed while a horned demonic figure floated in the background. The image drew immediate condemnation, including from some of the president’s most loyal conservative Christian allies.
Riley Gaines, Fox News host and conservative commentator, said she “cannot understand why he’d post this”. “Is 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,” she wrote on X.
Trump’s now-deleted post
“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,” she wrote. She demanded Trump “take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God”.Isabel Brown, another conservative host, called the image “disgusting and unacceptable”.“Nothing matters more than Jesus,” she wrote. “This 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.”Steve Deace, a host at BlazeTV, posted a single-word response: “No.”The image had originally surfaced in early February on X, posted by conservative commentator Nick Adams, known for sharing AI-generated pro-Trump biblical imagery. In Adams’s version, a silhouette of a US soldier appeared in the background. In Trump’s reposted version, that figure had been altered into a horned demon looming behind him.The backlash was not limited to media figures. Even on Truth Social, where dissent against Trump is rare, several users criticized the president over the post before it was deleted.The controversy comes amid Trump’s ongoing public feud with Pope Leo XIV, who recently suggested that a “delusion of omnipotence” was shaping US foreign policy, particularly in relation to Iran. Trump responded by calling the pontiff “WEAK on Crime,” saying he was “not a fan of Pope Leo” and accusing him of “catering to the radical left”.The deleted AI image also appeared just a week after Easter Sunday for Catholics and a day after Orthodox Easter, amplifying criticism among religious conservatives who viewed the depiction as offensive.Trump’s post came only months after signing legislation that significantly cuts federal Medicaid spending over the next decade, a move critics say will strip health coverage from millions of low-income Americans. One user on X, Mandy Arthur, summed up the outrage, writing: “God, we might have made a mistake and accidentally elected the Antichrist. Send help.”