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The AI-generated image, which portrayed US President Donald Trump in the likeness of Jesus Christ, was pulled from Truth Social after Speaker Mike Johnson personally intervened, and asked the US President to ‘delete’ it.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks during a campaign rally against Virginia Democrats' proposed state redistricting constitutional amendment ahead of the referendum special election on April 21, in Bridgewater, Virginia, U.S., April 11, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno(REUTERS)The image, which Trump posted late Sunday night on Truth Social without any caption, showed a figure in flowing robes placing a hand on the forehead of a bedridden man, surrounded by a nurse, a soldier, and a reverent-looking Trump supporter. American flags, fireworks, and the Statue of Liberty formed the backdrop. It was deleted by Monday morning.
Speaker Johnson said he approached Trump directly after seeing the post, telling him he did not believe it was being "received in the same way he intended it. He agreed and he pulled it down."
Trump Says He Thought It Depicted a Doctor, Not Jesus
Donald Trump pushed back against the interpretation that the image drew a parallel between himself and Christ. Speaking to reporters, he insisted he believed the robed, red-sashed figure was meant to represent a doctor — not Jesus Christ.
Trump explained to Johnson how he understood the post and did not think the image was sacrilegious, Politic quoted the Congressman.
Despite the deletion, Trump defended the post on Monday, maintaining that the depiction had been misread by critics.
Republican Backlash Cuts Across Party Lines
The reaction from within Republican ranks was swift and, notably, unusually candid. Johnson, a devout Christian, and senior members of his GOP leadership circle, which includes several Catholic lawmakers, fielded a wave of calls from constituents, fellow legislators, and church groups furious about the post, according the Politico report quoting three individuals familiar with the developments.
Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent MAGA loyalist who had formerly aligned herself with Trump, broke ranks and denounced the image, saying she was “praying against it”, particularly in light of Trump's concurrent public dispute with the Pope.
Representative Austin Scott was equally direct. "It's not okay," he said on Tuesday, adding that "God will not be mocked."
The Pope Responds — and Pushes Back
Notably, Trump had spent the same weekend attacking Pope Leo XIV in a rather long Truth Social post, claiming the pontiff was soft on crime and "terrible for Foreign Policy."
Pope Leo XIV responded on Monday, saying he had no fear of the Trump administration. He also appeared to take aim at the broader pattern of behaviour, stating he did not think "the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing… I will continue to speak out loud against war."
Cracks Forming in the MAGA Base?
What may concern Trump's inner circle more than the image itself is what the reaction reveals about the mood among his supporters. According to a Politico report, the episode is deepening fractures within the MAGA coalition at an already fraught moment.
The backlash cut across evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics and the populist conservatives who form the backbone of Trump's base — a sign of how little grace key supporters are willing to extend at a moment when frustrations are already running high.
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson, a well-regarded voice among evangelical voters, said the image may have been the final straw for supporters already worn down by unmet expectations.
"They're not getting what they voted for to begin with. On top of that, whether he's mocking their religion intentionally or not, he still is," Erickson said. "I think we are looking not really at a MAGA crack-up per se, but a lot of the base becoming exasperated enough to start looking beyond Trump."
The episode arrives as many once-loyal Trump supporters are grappling with disappointment over what they describe as a sluggish deportation agenda, economic uncertainty, and renewed conflict in the Middle East — grievances that have left them with considerably less tolerance for controversy than in previous years.
About the Author
Sayantani Biswas
Sayantani Biswas is an assistant editor at Livemint with seven years of experience covering geopolitics, foreign policy, international relations and global power dynamics. She reports on Indian and international politics, including elections worldwide, and specialises in historically grounded analysis of contemporary conflicts and state decisions. She joined Mint in 2021, after covering politics at publications including The Telegraph. <br> She holds an MPhil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University (2019), with a specialisation in postcolonial Latin American literature. Her research examined economic nationalism through Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. She also writes on political language, cultural memory and the long shadows of conflict. <br> Biswas grew up in Durgapur, an industrial town in West Bengal shaped by migration, which drew families from across India to the Durgapur Steel Plant. As the only child in a joint family, she spent years listening—almost obsessively—to her grandparents’ testimonies of struggle, fear and loss as they fled Bangladesh during the Partition of 1947. This formative exposure to lived historical memory later converged with her training in Comparative Literature, equipping her to analyse socio-economic structures and their reverberations. <br> Outside the newsroom, she gravitates towards cultural history and critical theory, returning often to texts such as Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As a journalist, she is committed to accuracy, intellectual rigour and fairness, and believes political reporting demands not only clarity and speed, but historical depth, contextual precision, and a disciplined resistance to spectacle.
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