President Donald Trump brushed off criticism Monday of a viral AI-generated image that depicted him dressed as the pope, dismissing the controversy as media-driven and noting that his wife Melania thought it was “cute.”
Asked by Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich about negative reactions from Catholics, Trump redirected the blame. “You don’t mean the Catholics, you mean the Fake News Media. The Catholics loved it,” he said. Heinrich pushed back, but Trump doubled down, saying the image wasn’t his doing and he wasn’t sure where it originated.
“Somebody made up a picture of me dressed like the pope and they put it out on the internet. That’s not me that did it, I have no idea where it came from. Maybe it was AI,” Trump said. “I just saw it last evening. Actually, my wife thought it was cute. She said, ‘Isn’t that nice?’”
Trump then joked about the celibate lifestyle of the papacy, saying, “Actually, I would not be able to be married, though. That would be a lot. To the best of my knowledge, popes aren’t getting married, are they?” His comments drew laughter from the room.
When Heinrich asked whether posting the image on an official White House account diminished its credibility, Trump replied, “Give me a break. It was just — somebody did it in fun. It’s fine.”
Vice President JD Vance also responded to the image, which some critics viewed as inappropriate. When questioned by Bill Kristol, Vance, a practicing Catholic, said, “As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen.”
Vance went further, later joking that since Secretary of State Marco Rubio had temporarily taken on additional responsibilities, maybe he could also take on another position “open only to a devout Catholic.”