President Donald Trump waves to reporters as he walks on the South Lawn upon his arrival at the White House, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Washington.Jose Luis Magana/AP
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Despite his brashness, Donald Trump has built a habit of taking back some of his most obscene social media posts.
On Monday, the president deleted a bizarre image of what appeared to be an AI-generated depiction of him as a Jesus-like figure following immediate criticism, many from his own right-wing supporters such as Fox News host Joey Jones and anti-trans political activist Riley Gaines. Trump had initially posted the picture on Sunday during his feud with Pope Leo XIV over the US-Israeli war in Iran.
Trump told reporters on Monday that he thought his post portrayed him “as a doctor” and “had to do with [the humanitarian nonprofit] Red Cross.”
“Only the fake news could come up with that one,” he continued, in response to the idea that the image made him look like Jesus.
Much like many of his policies, Trump’s posts often have no actual substance. Let’s step back in time and revisit some of the president’s previous highlights:
Where Trump depicts former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a racist video (February 2026)
As Katie Herchenroder wrote for Mother Jones shortly after the Truth Social post was deleted the next day:
“Toward the end of an unrelated video alleging interference in the 2020 presidential election, a clip that is around 2 seconds long features the first Black president and his wife on the bodies of apes as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background. That clip comes from a longer video that a meme account posted in October.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wrote on X: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
Trump refused to apologize, and the White House blamed a staff worker for “erroneously” posting it.
Where Trump referenced Nazi-era language in a video looking forward to a potential win in the 2024 election (May 2024)
About four seconds into a video promoting Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign asking “What happens after Donald Trump wins? What’s next for America?,” an imaginary news headline reads “Industrial strength significantly increased…driven by the creation of a unified reich.”
According to the Associated Press, the headline appeared to be text copied word-for-word from a Wikipedia entry on World War I at the time: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press statement. The video stayed up for about 15 hours.
Where Trump violated a gag order on his criminal hush money trial nine times (April 2024)
In a criminal case where Trump was ultimately found guilty for falsifying business records to hide payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels for silence over an alleged sexual encounter, a New York judge fined the president $9,000—$1,000 for each violation—over posts on his campaign website and Truth Social page that attacked potential jurors and witnesses on the morning of April 30, 2024. Trump was ordered to delete the posts by the afternoon—which he complied with.
Some of the targets of Trump’s attacks: expected witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, and condemning prospective jurors as “liberal activists.”
Where Trump threatened all of his enemies during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack (January 2021)
At 2:24pm ET on January 6, just after rioters breached the Capitol, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” Many of the rioters were demanding that Pence stop the certification of the election.
Other posts inciting violence and reiterating unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen were also deleted or removed following social media platforms Facebook and Twitter temporarily suspending Trump’s accounts.
In response to the bans, Trump launched Truth Social in 2022 so that he could continue posting through it.
