‘they’re Not Getting What They Voted For’: Jesus Meme Lays Bare Gop Frustrations With Trump

President Donald Trump’s weekend tirade against the pope — capped off by an AI-generated depiction of the president as Jesus — was, for some of his supporters, just too much.

Their unusually severe backlash comes as many once-devout Trump supporters are having a crisis of faith. Upset over what they feel is a too timid deportation agenda, a sputtering economy and another war in the Middle East, many couldn’t stomach the affront the way they might have in the past.

The backlash cut across evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics and the populist conservatives who form the backbone of Trump's base — a sign of how little grace key supporters are willing to extend at a moment when frustrations are already running high.

To some, the Jesus meme — which Trump later said was never meant to liken him to Jesus but was instead supposed to depict the president as a Red Cross worker — exhausted whatever goodwill remained.

"They’re not getting what they voted for to begin with. On top of that, whether he’s mocking their religion intentionally or not, he still is,” said Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters central to the MAGA base. “I think we are looking not really at a MAGA crack-up per se, but a lot of the base becoming exasperated enough to start looking beyond Trump.”

The recriminations come as the president works to hold together his coalition ahead of the midterms — and as some allies warn that the divisions risk hastening his lame duck status. Allies also fear that Democrats will use divisions in the coalition, such as between Catholics, to depress Republican turnout not only ahead of the midterms but the 2028 election.

Trump, who used to be Presbyterian but is now nondenominational, won 59 percent of the Catholic vote in 2024, up from 50 percent in 2016. Former President Joe Biden, the second Catholic president, won the voting bloc with 52 percent in 2020, according to CNN exit polling.

“Peel off certain Catholic demos and maybe you win a few House seats,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump adviser and former administration official, now pursuing a masters in theology at Ave Maria, a Catholic enclave in Florida.

“The Democrats found the Catholic door to the division they need before the midterms — and after meeting Obama’s top adviser, the pope helped them turn the handle,” he added, pointing to former Obama adviser David Axelrod’s recent meeting with the pope as evidence the strategy is already underway.

For weeks, some of the president’s core supporters have been nursing grievances over the Iran war — which alienated the GOP’s isolationist wing — as well as rising prices, an insufficiently aggressive deportation agenda , and lingering frustration over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files. The weekend collapse of Viktor Orbán's government in Hungary, a lodestar for that wing of the movement, is only deepening the disillusionment. Against this backdrop, some of the president’s supporters had no tolerance for the attempted appropriation of Jesus.

Some White House allies saw the quick deletion of the post and the president’s explanation as an unusual sign of a contrition from an administration that is loath to back down. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Tuesday that he asked the president to delete the Jesus meme, indicative of the politically vulnerable situation the president finds himself in.

"It was almost like a dual-headed misstep — he wants to go on a riff against the pope, and then he tries to appropriate Jesus," said a Republican fundraiser who is Catholic, granted anonymity to speak candidly. "He got significant pushback on both sides of the Christian aisle, from evangelicals and Catholics. It's a no-go zone."

Other Trump loyalists argue the people criticizing the president are taking for granted what he’s done for them.

“Some people are frustrated over lots of other stuff, and therefore they're saying, I'm sick of it,” said one senior administration official and devout Catholic, also granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If it makes them feel good to say, ‘I find this blasphemous,’ fine, but it doesn't really comport with where you are in terms of making a difference.”

Both RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels and White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers echoed that point in statements, arguing that Trump has passed a number of pro-Catholic policies, as well as undone policies from former President Joe Biden, including on abortion and transgender issues.

“President Trump ended the weaponization of the federal government against people of faith, proudly defended and expanded our religious rights, pardoned pro-life activists, stopped the chemical mutilation of our nation’s children, and protected parents’ rights,” Rogers said.

The president’s decision to launch into invective against Pope Leo XIV while flying home from Miami Sunday night left many allies perplexed. In the post, an apparent reaction to a “60 Minutes” segment featuring three prominent Catholic cardinals criticizing the Iran war, Trump called Leo “weak,” said that he should “get his act together,” and claimed credit for his ascension to the papacy.

“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. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

One White House ally, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said that “the goal of fighting with the pope is not really clear.”

“People are puzzled,” the person said.

Shortly after, Trump posted to his Truth Social account the image of him, clad in a white robe and draped with a red shawl, bathed in light, appearing to heal a sick man in a hospital bed, swathed in classic Americana imagery — the Statue of Liberty, the American flag, and a bald eagle.

Some of the president’s allies brushed it off as a joke — Trump being Trump. He had, after all, previously posted a picture of himself as the pope.

“Shit posting is what he does, so it’s not something I’m particularly offended by, but I just think it’s gratuitous, like, why do that? It just feels like a mosquito. It’s annoying me,” said one MAGA Catholic close to the White House.

“I don’t think that this is a unique one-off that shatters the coalition,” the person added. But “the people who are the most upset about it have been irritated for a number of reasons — and this is just one more thing.”

A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that Trump’s overall approval rating is at about 39 percent, with 35 percent approving of his handling of the economy and 31 percent approving how he has addressed inflation. His approval rating on the war stands at about 36 percent.

The incident has left many of the president’s Catholic allies grappling with how to hold together a coalition being pulled in two directions: conservative populist Catholics, frustrated with the pace of immigration enforcement and the president’s intervention in Iran, among other issues, and more moderate, Leo-aligned Catholics, including some Hispanics, who backed Trump on the economy but are now questioning whether he’s kept his promises. Democrats, they say, are only too happy to foment the divisions.

“It isn’t just an issue for the midterms. When we see this kind of surge in a voting demographic, you work to grow it more. This clever division strategy is weed killer instead,” Caputo said. “It will be our job to heal this demo before November and into 2028.”

Dasha Burns and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.