Brutta Figura

Habemus Trumpam. Last weekend, with the world’s eyes fixed on the Vatican following the death of Pope Francis and ahead of the selection of a successor, the president of the United States inserted himself, inevitably, into the conversation by posting an apparently AI-generated image to Truth Social depicting him in papal robes, one finger solemnly raised. I say inserted himself, but it seems unlikely that Trump actually posted the image himself. (I must note, again, that this is a man who has been known to consume social media posts in printed form.) Asked at the White House about the controversy that the episode generated, Trump disclaimed any involvement, but defended the image anyway; “the Catholics loved it,” he said. (Many Catholics did not love it; Timothy Dolan, an American cardinal Trump has said would make a good pope, responded with the Italian phrase “brutta figura,” suggesting that the post left a bad impression.) One Catholic who did love the image, Trump said, was his wife, Melania, who found it “cute”: “‘Haha,’ she said, ‘isn’t that nice.’ I would not be able to be married, though. That would be a lot. To the best of my knowledge, popes aren’t big on getting married, are they? Not that we know of, no.” He then suggested that the whole controversy had been ginned up by “the fake news media,” adding, “they’re fakers.”