CNN star Anderson Cooper has slammed President Donald Trump’s curious excuse behind his AI Jesus post as “one of the lamest lies imaginable.”
Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Christ on his Truth Social on Sunday evening. After a backlash, including from some MAGA figures, Trump deleted the post and attempted some weapons-grade deflection.
He insisted ”only the fake news” would suggest he was depicted as Jesus and claimed that he thought the picture represented “me as a doctor” instead.
“It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better,” Trump said on Monday. “And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”
The image was posted after the president had slammed Pope Leo in a lengthy social media screed, calling the religious leader “WEAK on crime and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
Cooper pointed out that the 79-year-old then “decided it would be a good idea to post this AI image depicting himself as Jesus bathed in golden, God-like celestial light with light emerging from both his hands, healing a sick man while a woman prays, staring at the orb of light in Trump/Jesus‘s hands.”
After documenting Trump’s nocturnal posting spree, Cooper noted the president “did take down” the AI image and then “came up with one of the lamest lies imaginable” to defend his posting of the image.
After playing Trump’s medical excuse, a skeptical Cooper said, “Come on,” before airing a side-by-side comparison of Jesus, the AI-generated Trump Jesus and an actual doctor.
“We’ve all been to doctors,” Cooper said. “Here endeth the sermon.”
The White House referred the Daily Beast to “the president’s comments” when asked about Cooper questioning his excuse that he was portraying a doctor not Jesus.
On Monday’s AC360, Cooper also interviewed CNN’s Chief Political Analyst David Axelrod, who met with Pope Leo a day after reports emerged that Pentagon officials had berated a top Vatican diplomat over the pontiff’s criticism of Trump’s warmongering.
As part of his slamming of the Pope on Truth Social, Trump called him out for meeting “with Obama Sympathizers like David Axelrod, a LOSER from the Left, who is one of those who wanted churchgoers and clerics to be arrested.”
Axelrod said on CNN that Trump “treats the Pope as if he‘s another politician, as if his responsibilities are political. He‘s not a politician. He‘s the leader of the Catholic church. He‘s the keeper of the faith.”
Axelrod and Cooper then discussed Trump’s backpedalling on the AI-generated Jesus photo. “He’s wearing Jesus-like robes, he’s got light emanating from his hands,” Cooper said.
“He claims this is a picture of him as a doctor. I don’t know what hospital he’s ever been in but it’s certainly not what my doctor wears.”
Axelrod said Trump must have recognized the “immediate reaction” from “people of faith across the political spectrum” including his own supporters, leading him to delete the post.
“But, you know, the president never concedes error and he wasn‘t going to concede it here,” Axelrod said.
