Joe Rogan poked fun at President Donald Trump’s claim that a controversial image he posted depicted him as a doctor — not Jesus.
The AI-generated image, shared on Truth Social, portrayed Trump wrapped in robes and reaching out to heal a sick man, while beams of light streamed from his hands. After it triggered backlash from across the political spectrum, the president deleted the post and said he thought it presented him as a physician.
It came up in conversation during an episode of Rogan’s podcast on Tuesday, when he was discussing the power of artificial intelligence with guest Andy Stumpf, a former Navy SEAL.
“AI god has to come alive and take over the system,” Rogan said. “AI god, the one that created that Jesus meme that Trump just posted.”
“Joe, I told you, he explained it. He was a doctor,” Stumpf replied sarcastically.
This drew laughter from the podcast host, who endorsed Trump in 2024 but has criticized him several times in recent months, including over the Iran war.
“That’s what they called him. That’s what AI god calls Jesus,” Rogan shot back. “Jesus is a doctor.”
Their conversation then moved on to other topics.
The 79-year-old Republican president uploaded the AI image to his Truth Social page on Sunday, shortly after he posted a scathing attack against Pope Leo, whom he called “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
Outrage quickly followed, with a number of commentators noting that the image clearly resembled the Christian savior. They denounced Trump’s behavior as beyond the pale and blasphemous.
“On Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump’s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus,” former Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X. “completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!”
“This is not only offensive,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, wrote on X. “It is deranged, egomaniacal behavior.”
By Monday morning, the post had been deleted from the president’s Truth Social feed.
Speaking to reporters outside the Oval Office later that day, Trump confirmed he was the one who posted the image and defended his decision.
“I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor,” he said. “You know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better. So that’s what it was viewed as. That’s what most people thought.”
He said he took the image down because he “didn’t want to have anybody be confused,” though he blamed the “fake news” for stirring controversy.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, an Evangelical Christian, applauded the president’s decision.
“I talked to the president and told him I don’t think it was being received in the same way he intended it, and he agreed,” Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill. “I don’t think he thought it was sacrilegious at all.”
