Faith leaders pray over President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Image via the White House.
In a meme shared on Friday, President Donald Trump suggested that Jesus had sent him to correct the policies of former President Barack Obama. The post comes in the wake of some of Trump’s earlier social media posts with Jesus imagery that have drawn a backlash from his base.
The meme, which he shared on Truth Social, shows Obama in conversation with a Jesus-type figure, flanked by clouds and columns of gold; in the photo, Obama says, “reversing all of my policies!” and the AI-Jesus responds, “you reversed all of mine, which is why I sent Trump.”
Trump is no stranger to such pushback over his use of religious imagery online. In April, he put up an AI rendering of himself in a white robe with a hand glowing on the brow of an ill man, something critics likened to the sort of painting one sees of Jesus tending to the infirm.
The background included the Statue of Liberty, a waving US flag, fighter jets, an eagle, a nurse, a praying woman, and what looked like a uniformed soldier. A few hours after taking it down, Trump told reporters he thought the picture showed him as a doctor beside a Red Cross worker.
“It’s supposed to be as a doctor making people better,” he said. “And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”
He explained to CBS News that the image was gone because “I didn’t want to have anybody be confused. People were confused”.
Not long after the image appeared, there was criticism, even from those close to the administration and the president.
White evangelicals have been the president’s most steadfast supporters, but new numbers indicate their backing has waned.
A Pew Research Center poll from earlier this month puts Trump’s approval at 58 percent, a 20-point slide from 78%. Reuters/Ipsos data has his support among white evangelicals at 63% this month, down from 77 percent in January 2025.
That is a smaller fall than the one seen in the electorate at large, from 47 percent to 31 percent, and he still holds above 60 percent with white evangelicals, the only major group in the Reuters/Ipsos tracking where that is the case.
Republicans are on the defensive given Trump’s record-low approval ratings, and a strong showing from evangelicals may be the party’s way of curbing losses as voters are frustrated up by the war in Iran and the cost of living.
His ties to white evangelicals have withstood a decade of trouble for the three-time married president, including the hush money case with an adult star and dozens of sexual misconduct accusations he says are untrue. That loyalty will be key in Senate contests outside of South Carolina that could well decide who runs Congress, in states like Iowa and Kansas where white evangelicals are a considerable part of the voting public.
