President Donald Trump stood his ground Monday during a wide-ranging press conference, flatly refusing to apologize to Pope Leo XIV and claiming that a social media image widely condemned as blasphemous was actually a depiction of him as a medical professional.
The President addressed the media from the White House during a DoorDash delivery, following a weekend of intense backlash from prominent conservative and Catholic allies.
When asked directly if he had posted the picture of himself depicted as Jesus Christ, Trump dismissed the premise, blaming the media for the interpretation.
“Well, it wasn’t depicted. It was me,” Trump said. “I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there… it’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better, and I do make people better.” He added that “only the fake news could come up with that one,” referring to the comparisons to Christ.
READ: Holy War Of Words: GOP Heavyweights Blast Trump’s Attack On Pope, ‘Blasphemous’ Image
Despite calls for an apology from high-ranking religious figures like Bishop Robert Barron, Trump remained defiant regarding his verbal attacks on the first U.S.-born Pope. He cited his “great guy” brother, Lewis, who he claimed is a “big MAGA person,” noting, “I like Lewis better than I like the Pope.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, he’s wrong,” Trump said, doubling down on his criticisms of the pontiff’s stances on crime and foreign policy. “He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran… Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result. You have hundreds of millions of people dead, and it’s not going to happen.”
The President linked the feud to his administration’s current military and economic strategy, asserting that the Vatican’s calls for peace would lead to a nuclear-armed Iran.
He claimed that his aggressive posture, including a total naval and air blockade, had already crippled the Iranian government. “Their Navy is gone. Their Air Force is gone… their leaders are gone,” he claimed.
Trump also used the appearance to pivot to a series of grievances regarding the 2020 election, which he again labeled “rigged,” and to criticize domestic opponents. He took aim at New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling her a “very corrupt person,” and labeled former FBI Director James Comey a “dirty cop.”
The controversy erupted late Sunday when Trump posted a lengthy critique of the Pope on Truth Social, accusing him of being “weak on crime” and failing to defend Christians during COVID-19.
The subsequent image—which depicted Trump in a robe healing a sick man under a beam of divine light—triggered a rare wave of condemnation from the religious right, including figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Riley Gaines.
While Trump maintained the image was medical in nature, he concluded by reinforcing his “Law and Order” platform, boasting of the lowest murder rates in over a century and insisting that his duty to protect the country from nuclear threats outweighs any diplomatic friction with the Holy See.
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