President Donald Trump is throwing himself back into religion, after he was pilloried from all angles for a stint of overt blasphemy.
The 79-year-old has, in the past, flaunted his Christian chops by hawking $60 Bibles on the campaign trail and by declaring the Good Book his favorite tome—while struggling to cite a single passage. However, his credentials suffered earlier this month when he made the ungodly decision to depict himself as Jesus Christ in an AI-generated image.
He then embarked on a public spat with none other than the leader of the Catholic Church. With his standing amongst followers of Christ potentially in the mud, his PR goons have come up with a cunning plan.
As part of a week-long Bible reading event dubbed ‘America Reads the Bible,’ POTUS will read a piece of Old Testament scripture from the Oval Office on Tuesday.
The reading, centered on 2 Chronicles 7:11-22, will be held between 6-7 p.m. ET. The passages, perhaps ironically, serve as a warning to King Solomon about abandoning God’s commands.
USA Today reported that the spectacle is pre-recorded, hopefully meaning Trump won’t go off script(ure). The recording will be streamed on the America Reads the Bible website and the Great American Pure Flix app.
“I applaud every citizen participating in the America Reads the Bible initiative,” the president said in a statement on April 17. “Together, we will honor Holy Scripture, renew our faith, usher in a historic resurgence of religion on American shores and rededicate the United States as one Nation under God.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles are also set to participate, along with other Trump administration officials. As is self-declared ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth, whose recent relationship with God has generated headlines.
Last week, Hegseth was ridiculed after he cited a prayer largely invented by film director Quentin Tarantino for the movie Pulp Fiction to praise a rescue mission during the Iran war. He has also quoted Bible verses to justify the war, calling for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
But it is his boss, Trump, whose run-ins with the man upstairs have been truly questionable. The aging president posted a bizarre AI-generated image of himself as Jesus earlier this month—drawing backlash even from MAGA loyalists, before it was taken down. Trump later insisted he thought it showed him as a doctor.
“It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better,” the president spuriously claimed of the image, which showed him with a glowing orb floating above his palm as he was surrounded by angels, and demons, descending from the sky.
He has also spent weeks fanning tensions with Pope Leo XIV. The beef started when Trump unleashed a late-night rant about the Chicago-born pontiff’s stance on Iran.
He also invented some claims the pope never made. “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump began. He added he does not want a pontiff who thinks it’s acceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, who thinks it’s “terrible that America attacked Venezuela” or “who criticizes the President of the United States.” The pope has never publicly stated that he thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
“I’m not fighting with him. The pope made a statement. He says Iran can have a nuclear weapon. I’d say Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump later claimed, in an attempted clean-up operation.
The pope has since tried to cool the feud, too, saying his comments about “tyrants” were not aimed at the president.
But Trump was back on the AI beat soon after. He posted another AI-generated image to his social media last week of himself next to Jesus. This time, the two men were in a close embrace.
