Yes, Trump posted an AI image of himself as pope on Truth Social

In May 2025, as Catholics around the world mourned the death of Pope Francis and days before the conclave to elect a new pope was set to begin, claims began to spread online that U.S. President Donald Trump had posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as pope. This followed an interview Trump gave in which he quipped he'd be his own first choice to be pope, sparking outrage.

For example, an X user posted about the image, recalling the uproar former President Barack Obama caused by wearing a tan suit in 2014 and calling out what they saw as the relative lack of criticism of a representation of Trump wearing a papal miter (archived):

The post had 1.3 million views and 48,000 likes as of this writing. The claim, with the same image, further spread on X, Facebook and Reddit. Meanwhile, Snopes readers searched the site seeking to confirm whether Trump shared it.

The claim is true. On May 2, 2025, the Trump posted this image on Truth Social (archived):

(Truth Social user @realDonaldTrump)

Snopes ran the image through SightEngine and WasItAI, two AI detection engines, and confirmed that it was AI-generated.

The image adopts many of the visual codes traditionally associated with the papacy. In it, Trump wears a white miter with golden embroidery and the white cassock popes usually wear, with a golden cross on a golden chain around his neck. He is sitting on a golden throne and is pointing up with his right hand.

The image, posted without comment, had garnered more than 36,000 likes as of this writing. Thirty-eight minutes after Trump posted it, the official X account for the White House shared a screen capture of the Truth Social post, receiving more than 103 million views and more than 200,000 likes as of this writing (archived):