US President Donald Trump Creates Uproar With His AI Generated Picture Of Himself As Pope

United States President Donald Trump has posted a seemingly AI generated photo of himself in papal attire on his social media sparking a duelling backlash and praise, Newsweek said .

The image, which was also posted from the White House’s social media handle, prompted many social media users to call it “cosplaying as the next Pope” comes days after Trump had jokingly said last week that he would be his own “number one choice” for the next pope.

In the Vatican, cardinals are set to begin on May 7 the process to choose a successor to Pope Francis, who died on April 21. The US president was among the world leaders who attended his funeral at St Peter’s Square on April 26.

The president posted the picture at 10:29 pm Friday, without a caption or comment. “The post immediately garnered positive and negative reaction online,” Newsweek said adding, it reached out to the Vatican via email soon after.

Earlier on April 29, Trump told a television reporter: “I’d like to be pope. That would be my number one choice.”

When asked who should replace Francis, Trump said, “I have no preference,” but added: “I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good, so we’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s image went viral on social media with scores of users coming up with jokes, memes and criticism of the president.