Trump publishes a picture of himself as a Pope

President Trump answered a question on Tuesday when reporter asked who he would like to become the next top pope. “I want to be a Pope,” he joked reporters in the White House. “That would be my number a choice.”

He made the joke one step further on Saturday and divided on social media, which seemed to be a photo of Ai-generated when he was wearing the traditional robes of the Pope. The photo shows him in a white cassock with a cross around his neck, his face solemn when he lifts a pointed finger.

The origins of the photo were not immediately clear, and Mr. Trump did not contain any comment in his contribution. He shared the picture about social, Instagram and X of the truth, and the White House has released it on its official Instagram and X accounts.

The idea of ​​”Pope Trump”, as some people called it, was immediately polarizing. Some religious people, including Catholics, did not see the humor in it and called the photo offensive at a time when millions of people still mourned Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday. Several commentators for truth -social social led by a company controlled by Mr. Trump, described Post Sakrilegious and said that it has heated misinformation.

Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that the post of the photo during a mourning period was proof that Mr. Trump was “unsightly and unable”.

But some conservative Republicans played together with the President's joke this week. Among them was Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. “I was curious that President Trump was the idea of ​​being the next Pope,” he said on Tuesday in a post on X. “Watched for white smoke … Trump Mmxxviii!”

The Vatican, which is deeply in preparations for the choice of Pope Francis' successor, could not be reached immediately for a comment on the picture.

It is not the first time that Mr. Trump shared polemical content that is generated with artificial intelligence. In February he posted a video in which the Gaza Strip reinterpreted as an opulent resort that was decorated with his name. A representative of the Hamas government in Gaza called the video “shameful”.

After his joke to reporter on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said, who has significantly expanded the influence of conservative Christians in the White House that he had no strong preference for Pope. But then he pointed to the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, as one of his favorite candidates. Cardinal Dolan is not one of the front runners who have turned out to be the next Pope, who is chosen in a conclave that begins on Wednesday.