Author's Note: Who Speaks for God?

Trump posted this image of himself as Jesus Christ on Orthodox Easter Sunday, 2026. He deleted it after the backlash. He has not, as yet, deleted the war.

When an empire is told “no,” it usually responds with violence. When Donald Trump is told “no,” he responds with a tantrum.

In the wake of Pope Leo XIV’s refusal to bless the administration’s war in Iran, the President of the United States took to Truth Social to air his grievances. The resulting 330-word rant is a masterpiece of narcissistic injury, a document that reveals exactly how small the men running this country truly are. But beneath the whining and the capital letters, the post reveals the central tension of this administration’s relationship with religion: the question of who, exactly, gets to speak for God.

Donald Trump's Truth Social post, 13 April 2026, 4:02am. In it, he claims credit for the papacy. The Catholic Church was founded in approximately 33 AD.

Trump complained that Leo is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” He grumbled about COVID-era restrictions that the Pope had nothing to do with. He whined that Leo meets with “Obama Sympathizers.” And then, in the most revealing line of the entire outburst, he attempted to claim credit for the papacy itself: “He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump” (Benen, 2026).