Trump’s religious mocking, Iran war inject distractions from domestic policy

President Trump is distracting from his own agenda this week, winning headlines for a series of AI posts invoking Jesus Christ even as his administration seeks to drive home preferred messages on the Iran war and the economy.

The White House marked Tax Day by putting Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler front and center at the press briefing Wednesday.

The effort was likely intended to serve as an appetizer of sorts for Trump, who will travel west later this week to tout his tax agenda and address a crowd of young conservatives at a Turning Point USA event. 

But the tax message was largely drowned out Wednesday by distractions of Trump’s own making — including a new AI photo of Jesus Christ, this time showing him embracing Trump. 

That came on top of another distraction: Trump’s ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV, which continued Wednesday with new messages from the president on social media.

The distractions are frustrating to GOP donors, strategists and lawmakers, who feel they aren’t helpful in a midterm election year where Republicans are trying to hold on to majorities in the House and Senate.

It’s a situation made worse by the issue of affordability, where Trump was having problems even before the Iran war, which has raised prices at the pump.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that 57 percent of voters said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, while only 38 percent said they approved. 

 “Voters are focused on the economy in general,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “GOP candidates need Trump’s head in the game.” 

The White House pushed back at any suggestion Trump is getting in his own way.

In a statement to The Hill, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Trump “can walk and chew gum at the same time” when addressing the economy and foreign policy. 

“The White House has always been focused on domestic priorities, including the economy — before, during, and after Operation Epic Fury fully concludes. In the past month alone, President Trump signed two executive orders aimed at making housing more affordable, and TrumpRx.gov has added several new tranches of discounted prescription drugs,” Desai said.

The stirring up of controversies is nothing new for Trump, who delights in sparring with opponents online and in not only creating new 24-hour news cycles, but in interrupting them himself with new public comments.

For much of his second term, Republicans have worried little about Trump’s stream-of-consciousness style, though that may be shifting a bit as the midterms edge closer.

Republicans are generally favored to keep their Senate majority, but the nonpartisan Cook Political Report this week pushed four races toward Democrats. That signaled that winning the Senate majority back, even with a 53-47 edge, will not be a complete certainty for Republicans.

In the House, the GOP is broadly seen as an underdog in keeping the majority given its slender majority and the likelihood, based on history, that the president’s party will lose seats in a midterm election year.   

Against that backdrop, message discipline — and a focus on the administration’s accomplishments — is something that lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to see from the White House.

Bessent sought to inject some optimism into the news cycle Wednesday when he told reporters at the press briefing that Americans could see lower gas prices “sooner rather than later.” 

“I’m optimistic that sometime between June 20 and Sept. 20 that we can have $3 gas again,” Bessent said. 

He also appeared optimistic about the GOP’s midterm chances when asked by The Hill’s partners at Nexstar’s Washington bureau whether Trump’s comments on the pope, the AI image, and the war in Iran risk creating a distraction. 

“Look, the president creates a montage and a mosaic,” Bessent said. “President Trump’s one of the great communicators of my lifetime, maybe the greatest since Ronald Reagan. So it’s all part of his personal strategy. And he’s won [the] election twice, so seems to work.” 

Trump has shown no signs of shifting his strategy. On Tuesday, the new image of Jesus seemed to be an example of Trump digging into any backlash over his previous posts.

“The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” Trump wrote on the platform. 

The Trump post earlier this week that set off the controversy appeared to many to be portraying Trump as Christ.  While the president took the post down Monday at the behest of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), another religious conservative and close Trump ally, he later told reporters he thought the image was depicting him as a doctor. 

Trump’s former chief of staff during his first administration, Mick Mulvaney, said the post won’t do anything to help Republican turnout in a year where the historical headwinds are against the party. 

“The midterms are all about turnout. Republicans need Trump voters to show up in November.  I’m not sure any Republicans think the ‘Jesus/doctor’ post thing encourages people to get to vote GOP,” Mulvaney said. 

“Put another way: Anything that doesn’t help turnout helps Democrats, and that post doesn’t help turnout. And that is the case whether or not it is Trump-as-Jesus, Trump-as-doctor, or Trump-as-whatever,” he continued.

In the end, Trump’s distractions, and the furor over both the pope and the AI creations, may not make that much of a difference.

The economy and the Iran war loom much larger.

“Trump’s comments on the pope will fade over the next week. The Iran war is a potentially much bigger headache as we get closer to the midterms,” Eberhart said.

The White House suggested Wednesday that negotiations are continuing and perhaps are getting closer to some kind of deal.  

For Trump and the GOP, that would be good news, especially if it also lowers gas prices and gives Trump ammunition on affordability.

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