President Trump had little patience for media outrage Monday after Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich tried to grill him over a viral meme showing him dressed as the Pope. The AI-generated image, which racked up over 100 million views after being posted on the White House’s X account, became the latest flashpoint in the media’s never-ending crusade to manufacture controversy out of thin air.
During a press gaggle, Heinrich asked the president whether he thought the meme was appropriate, saying, “Some Catholics were not so happy about the image of you looking like the Pope.”
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025
Trump didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, I see. You mean they can’t take a joke? You don’t mean the Catholics, you mean the fake news media. The Catholics loved it,” he shot back. “I had nothing to do with it. Somebody made up a picture of me dressed like the Pope, and they put it out on the Internet.”
Trump clarified that he only saw the image the night before and that even his wife, Melania, found it charming. “She said, ‘Isn’t that nice?’” he noted.
When Heinrich pressed further, pointing out that the image had been shared from an official White House account, Trump shrugged it off: “It was a meme. Give me a break. It was just somebody did it in fun… Have to have a little fun, don’t you?”
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1919452288386793733
Online, critics torched the question as another example of the media being utterly disconnected from reality. Conservative commentators were quick to point out that if the press spent half as much energy questioning Biden’s cognitive decline or government overreach as they do nitpicking memes, the country might be in better shape.
Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, also jumped into the fray to defend Trump, calling the outrage ridiculous. Responding to neocon mouthpiece Bill Kristol, who condemned the image as “disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father,” Vance hit back hard: “As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen.”
As a general rule, I'm fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen. https://t.co/2WQPsofVIH
— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 3, 2025
That’s a pretty fair trade-off.
At the end of the day, Trump’s message was simple: calm down. It’s a meme. It’s satire. And the American people, unlike the professional outrage crowd, still know how to laugh.
And that might just be the scariest thing of all for the humorless Left.
As one of those Catholics that Trump talked about, I am fine with it. Took it like the joke it was meant to be. Now, if that had been “Catholic” Biden, I might not have liked it. As for Vance’s comments, SPOT ON. I took like comedy and not wars.