US President Donald Trump posted a seemingly artificially enhanced photo of himself depicted as the pope on Truth Social Friday night, days after jokingly saying he would ‘like to be Pope’.
The White House also reposted the image.
Pope Francis d!ed last month. The 88-year-old suffered a stroke and heart failure, Vatican doctor Andrea Arcangeli said in a death certificate released last week. President Trump was among several world leaders at the pope’s funeral.
After Trump posted the AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal attire, several social media users accused him of mocking Francis’ death.
“This is disrespectful to the church and God himself… he’s literally the antichrist,” one person commented.
Another wrote, “This is disgusting and entirely offensive.”
A third person tweeted, “This is extremely disrespectful and narcissistic. republicans really voted for that.”
Another person commented, “How disrespectful to Catholics. That is what Trump and his maggots are all about, disrespect and meanness and stupidity. How dare you mock the process we Catholics go through to pick a new pope.”
Trump was recently asked by a reporter who he would like to succeed Pope Francis. The 78-year-old immediately quipped: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
He further added: “I have no preference. I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good, so we’ll see what happens.”