Donald Trump Blames 'Fake News' for Jesus Image Backlash, Claiming He Was Just 'Healing' the Country

Donald Trump on Monday defended an AI-generated image that depicts him as Jesus Christ outside the White House, blaming 'fake news' for the backlash and insisting he had only meant to appear as a doctor 'healing' the country and 'making people better'.

The news came after a chaotic Sunday night online, when the president launched into a stream of social media posts attacking Pope Leo XIV as 'weak' and accused the pontiff of 'hurting the Catholic Church'. In the middle of that tirade, Trump shared the controversial AI image of himself styled unmistakably in the visual language of Jesus: white and red robes, radiant golden light, glowing hands and a crowd gathered around him as he appears to heal a man.

Trump's 'Fake News' Defence Of The Jesus Image

Pressed on Monday about why he had promoted an image that many Christians have called blasphemous, Trump pushed back and tried to recast the Jesus image as something else entirely.

'I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor,' he told reporters, standing on the White House driveway. He claimed the picture 'has to do with the Red Cross', adding that 'a Red Cross worker is there which we support'. In his telling, 'it's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better and I do make people better'.

He then pivoted to his familiar target. 'Only the fake news could come up with that one,' Trump said when asked directly about depicting himself as Jesus Christ. 'I just heard about it, I said, "how did they come up with that?"'

The problem for the president is that the AI image does not read as a medical scene. Trump appears in flowing robes, bathed in halo-like light, with a golden glow radiating from his hands. People gather around him as one woman clasps her hands in prayer. With his hands placed on a man whose eyes are closed, the image evokes a Biblical healing far more than a hospital shift.

Critics online were in no mood to indulge the 'doctor' explanation. On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, columnist @bruce_arthur wrote that 'by denying blasphemy, Trump is basically admitting to a serious cognitive deficit'. Others questioned whether the president had even looked closely at the image before reposting it or whether he simply did not care how overt the religious symbolism appeared.

Jesus Image Backlash Adds To Alarm Over Trump's Rhetoric

The Jesus image controversy is only the latest in a string of posts that have left even some Republicans unnerved about Trump's judgement. The weekend attack on Pope Leo XIV followed weeks of similarly unrestrained rants on his Truth Social platform, including explicit threats aimed at Iran.

Days before a self-imposed deadline he had set for Tehran, Trump wrote, 'Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!' In another post he warned Iranian leaders, 'Open the F------ Strait, you crazy b-------, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.'

A few days later, he escalated again, claiming, 'A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.' The language read less like calibrated deterrence and more like a threat of total destruction. Human rights lawyers and foreign policy analysts have argued that openly dangling the prospect of annihilating a population veers into the territory of threatened war crimes.

Despite bipartisan criticism in Washington, Trump has not publicly walked back or clarified those remarks. He has shown no sign of remorse, and the White House has not offered a detailed explanation of what, if anything, the administration actually intends to do in Iran. That gap between incendiary rhetoric and formal policy has deepened concerns among diplomats and military planners who prefer presidents not talk casually about ending civilisations.

Poll Shows Majority Back Impeachment As Trump Digs In

All of this has fed into a wider sense of unease about Trump's stewardship of the presidency, particularly his use of social media to taunt religious leaders, threaten foreign nations and now circulate a Jesus-style self-portrait.

A recent poll conducted by John Bonifaz, president and co-founder of the advocacy group Free Speech For People, found that 52 per cent of Americans want Congress to impeach President Donald Trump. According to the data, roughly one in seven Republicans now support launching removal proceedings, an extraordinary figure for a sitting president still in office.

The survey reflects, at the very least, a shrinking reservoir of public patience. Some of that discontent is clearly grounded in policy disputes. Yet the latest uproar over the Jesus image underlines another, more basic question that voters are wrestling with: is this how a president should talk about himself, his enemies and the potential destruction of other countries.

Nothing in Trump's reaction on Monday suggested he is inclined to change course. He placed the blame squarely on 'fake news', portrayed himself again as a healer of the nation and left the AI Jesus image hanging in the feeds of millions of Americans.