Donald Trump Shares Fake Photo of Himself as the Pope Days After Saying He’s His ‘Number One Choice’ for Pontiff’s Replacement

• Donald Trump shared a fake, AI-generated photo of himself as the pope on social media, 11 days after Pope Francis’ death
• Critics of the image called it “disrespectful” and said Trump was a “man-child,” while others insisted it was a joke
• The post comes shortly after Trump joked that he is his “number one choice” to replace the late pope

Donald Trump has shared another fake, AI-generated image — this time of himself as the pope.

Trump, 78, shared the photo on his Truth Social account on Friday, May 2, just days after jokingly stating he should succeed the late Pope Francis. The image was also shared 11 days after Francis died of a stroke at age 88, and six days after Trump attended the pontiff’s funeral at the Vatican.

The president shared no caption alongside the image, which depicts him sitting with a stern expression and holding up one finger while wearing white and gold papal attire, including a large cross necklace.

The photo was quickly reposted across social media platforms, where it was met with heavy criticism.

One viral post by an X account called “Republicans Against Trump” shared the artificially enhanced image and wrote, in part, “It’s full-on lunacy at this point.”

Harry Sisson, a vocal Democrat and political content creator, also received attention for his X post about the AI image, calling out the president for sharing such posts, instead of working to combat issues like rising inflation.

“Trump just posted an AI image of himself as the Pope. Instead of working to bring down costs, he’s doing this instead,” Sisson wrote. “Nice job, MAGA! You elected a man-child.”

Others, like X user @MissSassbox, criticized Trump for not only the content of the controversial post, but for making the “disrespectful” choice to share it so soon after Francis’ death.

“This is literally the President of the United States of America while the Vatican is still grieving the loss of Pope Francis and trying to pick his successor,” the user wrote. “It’s not even funny at this point, it’s actually disrespectful and I’m not even Catholic.”

Those defending the post on X, meanwhile, said it was “clearly a joke,” and insisted that those who were upset by the image were “taking the bait.”