Donald Trump rarely deletes a social media post, regardless of how morally debased it may be. And he never apologizes. Despite frequent acknowledgments from the President and his team that he has primary control over what he shares (especially during late-night posting sprees), an unnamed “aide” was blamed for a February post depicting former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
On Sunday night, amid a flurry of posts picking political fights with Pope Leo XIV, Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus healing a man lying (presumably) on his deathbed. In the image, he was surrounded by patriotic and spiritual imagery.
Most observers, including myself, assumed this blasphemy would be met with a shrug by his white evangelical supporters. But for whatever reason, it wasn’t. Whether it was because of his cellar-level poll numbers, the absence of anything close to comparable behavior by previous Democratic presidents for them to “whatabout,” or they simply finally found whatever remnant of a moral backbone they had left, conservative Christian influencers almost universally derided the post.
By Monday morning, some of Trump’s most prominent online evangelical enablers, including Riley Gaines, Megan Basham and Allie Beth Stuckey, had issued various levels of denunciations, most with minimal equivocation or softening of the blows. Of course, they made it clear they still support the President, but stated in no uncertain terms that the post was over the line.
The backlash prompted Trump to delete the post and to issue the closest he is capable of coming to an apology—feigning ignorance.
In what was clearly a staged press accessibility tacked onto a previously scheduled photo-op, the President responded to a reporter’s question about the post. Trump admitted to sharing the post, stating that he thought it depicted him as a Red Cross doctor. He then suggested that only the “fake news” would believe the image showed him as a messianic figure, ignoring that most of the outrage came from some of his most ardent supporters.
The Real Blasphemy
Theories about Trump’s social media strategy (or lack thereof) are legion. Supporters and critics alike are certain they know why he does what he does. Some believe his incessant postings are a smokescreen to distract. Others believe they are humorous trolling devices. His own chief propagandist, Karoline Leavitt, insists that the public takes everything he posts as truth, while others throw out indecipherable nonsense about taking him “seriously but not literally.”
The real truth is likely “all of the above” and “none of the above” simultaneously. Whatever strategy he may have employed in his early days of tweeting has sundowned right alongside his waning mental faculties. Yet what has almost always been true about Trump’s chaos is that, whether he intends it or not, there is always something in it that we miss hiding in plain sight.
During Monday’s press availability, most of us missed the true blasphemy occurring right before our eyes.
The event occurred during a staged photo-op at which Sharon Simmons, a DoorDash driver, delivered a McDonald’s lunch to the President outside the Oval Office. The West Wing photo-op coincided with the week tax filings are due in the U.S. and was intended to draw attention to Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy signed into law last year.
While stating he believed that the image depicted him as a doctor, he turned his attention to Simmons to draw a connection between her story and medical healing. According to Simmons, the $11,000 in savings she received from “no tax on tips” came during a time when her husband had to reduce his own hours at work to receive treatment for cancer.
As she spoke, cameras were pointed into the Oval Office. From the doorway and into the White House, Trump’s signature gold trimmings gleamed in the sunlight. After a reporter asked Simmons how generous the White House is with tips, Trump jokingly asked her to wait before answering, then reached into his pocket and handed her some cash.
Trump has famously bragged about evading taxes, claiming it makes him a good businessman. The combined wealth of a handful of billionaires who financed his 2024 campaign for reelection exceeds that of tens of millions of Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder. Meanwhile, a third of all crowdfunding campaigns launched in the United States each year are aimed at saving families like the Simmonses from drowning in medical debt.
The real offense against God in this story is an income inequality that forces workers into side jobs to earn only a fraction of what it takes to keep their loved ones alive. The blasphemy of celebrating “no tax on tips” amid such an unjust system makes Trump’s “Red Cross Doctor” meme look almost holy.
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Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.