(Mediaite) President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself seemingly in the role of Jesus Christ on Sunday night, complete with the robe-donning president reinvigorating a sick man with his healing hand while a nurse looked on and an American Eagle soared above. The bizarre — and some would probably argue sacrilegious — post was made about 40 minutes after the president went off on Pope Leo XIV in a blistering social media rant.

(Daily Beast) President Donald Trump is facing pushback from his base for a bizarre post in which he depicted himself as Jesus Christ. The president shared the image to Truth Social shortly after melting down in a lengthy rant aimed at Pope Leo XIV, lashing out at the Chicago-born pontiff for criticizing several of the president’s policies. In the image, he appears to be healing a man in a hospital bed while surrounded by American imagery like the U.S. flag, bald eagles, and several monuments. The image was not received well by much of the president’s base, including several prominent allies.

(AP) U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV pushed back Monday on President Donald Trump’s broadside against him over the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, telling reporters that the Vatican’s appeals for peace and reconciliation are rooted in the Gospel, and that he doesn’t fear the Trump administration. “To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is,” Leo told The Associated Press aboard the papal plane en route to Algeria. “And I’m sorry to hear that but I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the world today.

(The Guardian) The former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan has added his name to growing calls for the president to be ousted on grounds that he is unfit for the job, arguing that the US constitution’s 25th amendment addressing involuntary removal from office was “written with Donald Trump in mind”. Brennan, who served as head of the spy agency during Barack Obama’s presidency, told MS Now on Saturday that Trump’s recent volatile remarks about destroying Iranian civilization and the danger he posed to so many lives merited his removal from the Oval Office.

(Daily Beast) A new poll from CBS News/YouGov, conducted between April 8 and April 10, revealed some damning findings about domestic sentiments over Trump’s war on Iran, showing that more Americans are starting to become fed up with the administration’s antics. The poll found that most Americans feel uncomfortable with the war, with 68 percent worried, 57 percent stressed, and 54 percent angry about the conflict. The poll also found that only 32 percent feel either safe or confident about the conflict, and 29 percent feel proud about the United States’s role in it.

(Bloomberg) Iran said it would target all ports in and close to the Persian Gulf if its own shipping hubs are threatened, heightening the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz after the US announced plans for a blockade of Tehran-linked vessels. The security of ports in the region is “either for everyone or for no one,” Iran’s armed forces said in a statement on Monday, according to the state-run IRIB News. The US threat to block the strait would be “an act of piracy,” it said, reiterating plans to permanently control the critical waterway even after the war.

(Bloomberg) For a man who understands the power of leverage, Donald Trump is being remarkably slow to recognize the influence Iran has gained in the Strait of Hormuz. The US president’s threat to complete its closure by blocking Iranian exports through it, too, is far more likely to drag him deeper into a politically damaging war than to force Tehran’s capitulation.

(NY Times) For much of the past four years, Hungary was a persistent source of irritation for Ukraine. An outlier in Europe, Hungary maintained friendly relations with Russia while blocking critical European Union funding for Kyiv and stalling its path toward integration into the bloc. After the election defeat on Sunday of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s longtime prime minister and the architect of its pro-Kremlin policy, many Ukrainians were hoping for a turning point.

(AP) The big election over the weekend was in a small European country nearly half a world away from Washington, but the defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has significant reverberations in the United States. That’s because President Donald Trump and many U.S. conservatives have long embraced Orbán, who has become an icon among the global right for his anti-immigrant stance. The American president’s agenda has striking parallels with the way the Hungarian leader used the levers of government to tilt the media, judiciary and electoral system to keep his party in power for 16 years.

(AP) For decades, presidents avoided even the appearance of profiting from their office. ... Harry Truman refused to lend his name to any business, even in retirement. Richard Nixon so feared a brother might profit off their ties, he had his phone tapped. And George W. Bush dumped his individual stock holdings before taking office. President Donald Trump is taking a different approach. ... The family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid.