President Trump discussed the controversial Christ-like healer image with Bill Pulte, his housing finance chief, before posting it to Truth Social on Easter Sunday, according to two advisers who spoke with the president about the rendering.
The meme sparked immediate backlash from Christian leaders and drew such fierce criticism that Trump deleted it, a strikingly rare move for him. The source of how the image reached the president's attention had remained unclear until now.
According to the advisers, Pulte brought the image to Trump's attention while the two spent time together in South Florida over the weekend. Whether Pulte displayed it on his phone or sent it directly to the president remains unspecified. One adviser recalled that "everyone thought it was a joke." However, a third adviser friendly with Pulte disputed that account, saying Pulte did not provide the meme to Trump. Neither Pulte nor the White House offered comment.
The timing of the post added another layer to the controversy. Trump posted the image on Easter Sunday for Eastern Orthodox Christians, just one week after he had shared a vulgarity-laced threat to destroy Iran's infrastructure on Easter for Catholic and Protestant denominations. Hours before the meme post, he had attacked Pope Leo XIV, calling the pontiff "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy" and accusing him of "catering to the Radical Left."
The series of religiously provocative posts coincided with ongoing U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Iran and the White House's push to highlight tax-cutting initiatives.
Who is Bill Pulte?
Pulte, 37, holds the position of director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and maintains a visible presence in Trump's orbit, both at the White House and as a member of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. He has earned a reputation for generating controversy and friction within the administration.
Last week, a judge ruled that Pulte was legally immune from lawsuits filed by dozens of Fannie Mae employees he had fired on allegations of fraud, which the fired workers disputed as unsupported. The Financial Times previously labeled him an "agent of chaos" following his involvement in efforts to push the Justice Department to investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. In January, Pulte denied involvement in the probe, though he has been a driving force behind unsuccessful attempts to criminally charge New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who won a civil fraud case against Trump in 2024. That effort prompted Democrats to persuade the General Accounting Office to investigate whether Pulte has misused his federal authority. Last year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch Pulte "in the f*cking face," according to Politico.
The AI-generated image Trump posted featured a mysterious horned creature in the heavens that some viewers interpreted as demonic, though art experts warned against over-interpreting AI-generated content. The original image, published in February on X by MAGA influencer Nick Adams, did not include the horned figure.
Author James Rodriguez: "This is a textbook case of plausible deniability meeting manufactured chaos, with Pulte's fingerprints all over another mess that somehow becomes someone else's problem."
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