Vice President J.D. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, defended President Donald Trump amid growing backlash over the president's public attacks on Pope Leo XIV, framing the dispute as a matter of political disagreement rather than personal animosity. The comments came after Trump criticized the pope's stance on the Iran conflict and shared an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure, which he later deleted following criticism from both religious and conservative circles.