Trump posted himself as Jesus then quietly deleted it, and the explanation Vance just gave on live TV is making things considerably worse

Vice President JD Vance appeared on Fox News Channel Monday night to explain why President Donald Trump deleted a social media post depicting him as a Jesus-like figure, saying it was removed because “a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor.” As reported by AL.com, Vance, a Catholic convert, also dismissed the ongoing tension between Trump and Pope Leo XIV as “not particularly newsworthy,” while suggesting the Vatican should confine itself to religious matters.

Trump offered a different account when speaking to reporters outside the West Wing. He claimed he believed the image showed him as a doctor. “I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross,” he said, adding, “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better.” The image, showing Trump in white and red robes styled after religious art, was posted Sunday to his Truth Social account and deleted by Monday morning. Trump acknowledged making the initial decision to post it, a comparatively rare and rapid walkback.

The deletion came as friction between Trump and Pope Leo XIV continued to intensify. Vance suggested the Vatican should stay in its lane. “I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” he said. Denise Murphy McGraw, national co-chair of Catholics Vote Common Good, pushed back, stating: “At a moment when the Holy Father is being attacked and the dignity of the Church is being undermined, silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.”

Even his evangelical supporters drew a line at this one

Criticism of the image came from some of Trump’s most vocal evangelical backers. Willy Rice, a candidate for president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, posted on X that “It isn’t hard to condemn this outright,” adding that while “many Christians appreciate the President’s administration,” the image “is wrong.” Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, said he was “very grateful to see how many conservative Christians immediately denounced the blasphemous Jesus/Trump image.”

Conservative evangelical commentator Megan Basham agreed with Trump’s criticism of Leo as weak on crime and foreign policy, but called the image “OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy” and urged Trump to seek forgiveness. Riley Gaines, a conservative activist and prominent administration supporter, wrote on X: “I cannot understand why he’d post this,” adding that “a little humility would serve him well” and that “God shall not be mocked.” The breadth of criticism from within his own base likely factored into the decision to delete the post, a pattern of behavior that has drawn scrutiny alongside other instances of Trump testing limits with allies and supporters.

Despite removing the image, Trump has not backed down from his broader conflict with the pope. When asked whether he disavowed a separate post calling Leo “WEAK on Crime” and accusing him of “catering to the Radical Left,” Trump refused to apologize. “Pope Leo said things that are wrong,” he told reporters. “We believe strongly in law and order, and he seemed to have a problem with that, so there’s nothing to apologize for.”

The pope first drew Trump’s ire over criticism of the administration’s mass deportation policies. Leo has since clashed with Trump over the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, urging a peaceful resolution and explicitly rejecting Trump’s threats to destroy “a whole civilization” if Tehran did not comply with his demands, a posture consistent with the pope’s criticism of Trump’s aggressive foreign policy moves more broadly.

These tensions persist despite Trump surrounding himself with prominent Catholics, including Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and first lady Melania Trump. Neither Vance nor Rubio has taken any public steps to ease relations between Trump and the Vatican.

In February, Trump shared a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes, which remained online for nearly 12 hours before deletion, with the White House blaming a staffer and Trump declining to apologize. The comparatively quick removal of the Jesus-like image suggests the backlash from his own conservative base on matters of faith registered differently.