House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday he advised President Donald Trump to delete an artificial intelligence-generated image posted on Truth Social depicting the president placing a healing hand on a prone man's head.
The post on Sunday generated widespread criticism of the president because it appeared to show him as a Christ-like figure. The image, which was deleted Monday, showed Trump in flowing red and white robes, touching the forehead of what seemed to be a sick man. Light shined from his hand and head. An American flag waved in the background while onlookers gazed at the president in reverence.
Johnson, a devout Christian, was asked by a reporter whether the president's post was "blasphemy."
"I talked with the president about it as soon as I saw it and told him that I don't think it was being received in the same way he intended it," Johnson said in a video provided by KVOA-TV in Tucson, Arizona. "He agreed and he pulled it down.
"That was the right thing to do. He explained how he saw that, and I don't think he thought it was sacrilegious at all. I think he showed great respect to others by removing it."
The post came amid Trump's escalating feud with Pope Leo XIV, who has criticized the U.S.-Israeli conflict against Iran as inhumane. Shortly before publishing the image, Trump posted a lengthy screed against the pope on Truth Social, calling him "WEAK on crime and terrible for Foreign Policy."
Asked about the post Monday, Trump denied that he was trying to look like Christ.
"I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross [because there was] a Red Cross worker there, which we support," he told reporters outside the Oval Office. "Only the fake news can come up with that one. I just heard about it and I said, 'How did they come up with that?'
"It's supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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