of President Donald Trump weekend satire The backlash against the Pope – capped by the portrayal of the AI-generated president as Jesus – was, for some of his supporters, too much.
His unusually serious response comes as many of Trump’s devoted supporters are suffering a crisis of faith. Fed up with what they feel is a very timid deportation agenda, a faltering economy and another war in the Middle East, many may not tolerate this humiliation the way they might have done in the past.
The sharp reaction from evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics and populist conservatives who form the backbone of Trump’s base is a sign of how little grace key supporters are willing to extend at a time when frustrations are already running high.
For some, the Jesus meme – which Trump later said was never intended to compare him to Jesus, but was instead intended to portray the president as a Red Cross worker – obliterated whatever goodwill was left.
“He’s not getting what he initially voted for. Plus, whether he’s intentionally making fun of their religion or not, he’s still there,” said Eric Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters at the center of the MAGA base. “I think we’re not really looking at a MAGA crackdown, but a lot of the base is getting desperate enough to start looking beyond Trump.”
The allegations come as the president works to keep his coalition together ahead of the midterms — and as some aides warn that division threatens to accelerate his dysfunctional state. Aides also fear that Democrats will use divisions in the coalition, such as among Catholics, to reduce Republican turnout not only before the midterms but before the 2028 elections.
Trump, who used to be Presbyterian but is now non-denominational, won 59 percent of the Catholic vote in 2024, up from 50 percent in 2016. Former President Joe Biden, the second Catholic president, won the voting bloc with 52 percent in 2020, according to CNN exit polls.
“Take away some of the Catholic demos and maybe you’ll win some House seats,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump adviser and former administration official who is now pursuing a master’s in theology in Ave Maria, a Catholic enclave in Florida.
“Democrats have got the Catholic door open to division before the midterms — and after meeting with Obama’s top adviser, the Pope helped them flip control,” he said, pointing to former Obama adviser David Axelrod’s recent meeting with the Pope as evidence that the strategy is already underway.
For weeks, some of the president’s leading supporters have been complaining about the Iran war — which has alienated the GOP’s isolationist wing — as well as rising prices, an insufficiently aggressive deportation agenda, and continued frustration over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files. The fall over the weekend of Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary, which was a model for that wing of the movement, is only deepening disillusionment. Against this backdrop, some of the President’s supporters had no tolerance for Jesus’ attempted appropriation.
Some White House aides considered the immediate removal of the post and the president’s explanation an unusual sign of remorse from an administration that has been unwilling to back down. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday that he asked the president to remove the Jesus meme, a sign that the president finds himself in a politically vulnerable position.
“It was almost like a two-way misstep — he wants to rebel against the Pope, and then he tries to usurp Jesus,” said one Republican fundraiser who is Catholic, granting anonymity to speak candidly. “He got significant backlash from both sides of the Christian aisle, from evangelicals and Catholics. It’s a restricted area.”
Other Trump loyalists argue that people criticizing the president are taking for granted what he has done for them.
“Some people are frustrated about a lot of other things, and so they’re saying, I’m fed up with this,” said a senior administration official and devout Catholic. He also maintained the condition of anonymity to speak clearly. “If they feel like saying, ‘I find this blasphemous,’ that’s fine, but that doesn’t really align with where you stand in terms of creating change.”
RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Pels and White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers both reiterated that point in statements, arguing that Trump has passed many pro-Catholic policies, as well as undoing former President Joe Biden’s policies, including on abortion and transgender issues.
Rogers said, “President Trump ended the weaponization of the federal government against people of faith, proudly defended and expanded our religious rights, pardoned pro-life activists, stopped the chemical mutilation of our nation’s children, and protected parents’ rights.”
The president’s decision to launch a tirade against Pope Leo XIV while returning home from Miami on Sunday night surprised many aides. In the post, in an apparent response to a “60 Minutes” segment featuring three prominent Catholic cardinals criticizing the Iran war, Trump called Leo “weak”, said they should “get their act together” and claimed credit for his ascension to the papacy.
The president said, “He was not on any list to be Pope, and the Church put him in only because he was an American, and they thought it would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” Written on Truth Social.
“The goal of fighting with the Pope is really not clear,” said a White House aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak candidly.
“People are shocked,” the person said.
Shortly afterward, Trump posted a photo of himself on his Truth social account, showing him dressed in white and wrapped in a red shawl, bathed in light, healing a sick man in a hospital bed, draped in classic Americana imagery – the Statue of Liberty, the American flag and a bald eagle.
Some of the president’s allies shrugged it off as a joke — Trump being Trump. After all, he had posted before a picture of yourself As the Pope.
A MAGA Catholic close to the White House said, “What he does is post nonsense, so it’s not something I’m particularly angry about, but I think it’s unnecessary, like, why do that? It just sounds like a gnat. It’s bothering me.”
“I don’t think this is an isolated incident that will break the alliance,” the person said. But “the people who are most upset about it are upset for a variety of reasons – and this is just one more thing.”
Recently CBS News/YouGov The poll found that Trump’s overall approval rating That’s about 39 percent, with 35 percent approving of his handling of the economy and 31 percent approving of the way he addressed inflation. His approval rating on the war is around 36 percent.
The incident has forced many of the president’s Catholic allies to grapple with how to keep together a coalition that is being pulled in two directions: conservative populist Catholics, frustrated by the pace of immigration enforcement and the president’s intervention in Iran, among other issues, and more liberal, Leo-aligned Catholics, including some Hispanics, who supported Trump on the economy but are now questioning whether he has done his job. Promises have been fulfilled. He says Democrats are only happy to stoke division.
“This is not just an issue for the midterms. When we see this kind of growth in the voting demographic, you work to grow it even more. Instead this smart segmentation strategy is weeding out,” Caputo said. “It will be our job to fix this demo before November and by 2028.”
Dasha Burns and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
