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US President Donald Trump on Monday deleted a social media image apparently depicting him as Jesus after an outcry from religious leaders that he was being blasphemous.
The image posted on Trump’s Truth Social platform showed him in flowing red and white robes, touching the forehead of what appeared to be a sick man and with light shining from his hand and head.
An American flag waved in the background while various figures gazed up at the president in reverence.
The AI picture was posted late Sunday and removed Monday.
Asked about the post, Trump denied that he was trying to look like Jesus Christ.
“I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do Red Cross,” he told journalists. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”
The post generated an outcry from several prominent conservative Christians who are among Trump’s biggest backers.
“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 OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” Megan Basham, a conservative journalist and commentator wrote on X.
“He needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.”
Trump has previously used religious images in his posts. During his 2023 bank fraud trial, he shared a sketch from a supporter that showed him sitting next to Jesus in the courtroom.
His advisors have repeatedly cast him in a Jesus-like role.
During an Easter lunch event at the White House earlier this month, Paula White-Cain, a televangelist who has served as his spiritual advisor, likened Trump to Jesus.
“You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us.”
US President Donald Trump on Thursday warned Iran against imposing a toll for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran agreed to reopen the crucial route as part of a two-week ceasefire.
“There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
In a second message just a few minutes later, Trump added that “very quickly, you’ll see Oil start flowing, with or without the help of Iran.”
Oil prices crashed and stock markets surged around the world on Wednesday after the United States and Iran agreed a two-week conditional ceasefire, with global investors exhaling collectively at the first serious off-ramp from a war that had pushed crude above $110 a barrel and rattled financial markets for five weeks.
Brent crude fell 13.5 percent to $94.36 a barrel by late Wednesday afternoon London time — its steepest single-day decline since the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020. US crude dropped 15.5 percent to $95.36. Wall Street posted its biggest single-day rally in a year, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 1,300 points, or 2.9 percent, to close at 47,909. The S&P 500 advanced 2.5 percent and the Nasdaq climbed 2.8 percent. In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi soared 7.5 percent, Japan’s Nikkei gained more than 5 percent and Australia’s benchmark index rose 2.55 percent. Europe’s Stoxx 600 recorded its best session in a year, gaining 3.7 percent.
The trigger was a deal struck with just over an hour remaining before Trump’s self-imposed deadline for strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges. The president said he was holding off on his threatened bombardment, subject to Tehran accepting a two-week ceasefire and allowing passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s national security council confirmed it had accepted the terms if attacks against the country were halted. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Hormuz would be open to shipping for two weeks under the management of Iran’s military. Peace negotiations, Tehran said, would begin in Islamabad on Friday.
Investors placed a combined $950 million bet on falling oil prices just hours before the ceasefire was announced, Reuters reported — a detail that will fuel questions about what was known and when.
