Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) torched President Donald Trump’s evangelical ally, the Rev. Franklin Graham, on Thursday for defending the president’s now-deleted meme depicting him as a Jesus-like figure.
“Trump knows what he is doing. He knows what he posted. He knows how to manipulate his followers. And he’s not sorry, he never apologized,” Greene said in the scathing post on X. “Instead he lied, and said he was a doctor, which is also absurd.”
Trump’s stunt came amid unhinged attacks against Pope Leo XIV, who has called for peace in the Middle East. The president defended the AI-generated image, claiming he was actually depicted “as a doctor” and not as Jesus Christ.
Graham, one of Trump’s biggest right-wing religious supporters, backed the president’s defense on X following the controversy, which even some Christian right-wingers can’t get behind, claiming he does not believe the president “would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ — that would certainly be inappropriate.”
“When I looked at the illustration, I didn’t jump to the same conclusion as some. There were no spiritual references—no halo, there were no crosses, no angels. It was a flag, soldiers, a nurse, fighter planes, eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and I think this is a lot to do about nothing,” Graham explained. “There is so much ill-intended speculation. I think his enemies are always foaming at the mouth at any possible opportunity to make him look bad.”
