标签： Asia

A politically charged firestorm erupted this week after former and current U.S. President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated image depicting him as a messianic, Jesus-like healing figure — a post that quickly drew widespread backlash across religious and political lines, forcing Trump to remove it within 24 hours. The controversial post came on the heels of a bitter public feud between Trump and Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope in history, who has openly condemned Trump’s policy positions, including U.S. support for ongoing military conflicts in the Middle East and hardline immigration crackdowns.

After deleting the image, Trump offered a confusing explanation to reporters at the White House, claiming he believed the graphic depicted him as a doctor affiliated with the Red Cross. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better,” he told reporters. However, the widely circulated image leaves no room for ambiguity: it shows Trump draped in a flowing robe, with glowing hands hovering over the forehead of a man lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Across both Christian and Islamic religious traditions, Jesus Christ is revered as a figure with the divine power to heal the sick, making the depiction explicitly messianic.

Criticism poured in immediately from across the political and religious spectrum, starting with leading Democratic lawmakers. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took to social media platform X to condemn the incident, tying it to Trump’s ongoing conflict with the pope. “Trump is now attacking the Pope for speaking out against war while posting images of himself as a messianic figure,” Sanders wrote. “This is not only offensive. It is deranged, egomaniacal behavior. When will Republicans in Congress stop blindly following this dangerous and unhinged man?” Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee and a practicing Catholic, called the image “outrageous, offensive, and profane,” adding “clearly he is not well. As an American, a Catholic, a human – I am disgusted.” The Democratic National Committee’s official account tagged top Catholic and evangelical Republican leaders including Senate Republican JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, asking for public comment.

Notably, most sitting congressional Republicans remained silent through the first 36 hours of the controversy, even as high-profile former GOP members and religious conservative groups broke with Trump. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia congresswoman who has fallen out of Trump’s favor after facing primary pressure from his allies, issued a blunt condemnation on X: “I completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!” Former Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, another ex-Republican lawmaker who clashed with Trump, called on Christians of all denominations to speak out. “Jesus Christ is not a meme. His image is not a political tool. His name is not a brand,” Kinzinger wrote. Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Trump supporter and anti-abortion Catholic who was ousted from Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, went further, saying “Trump is not only a blasphemer but he is a liar. No Christian can support Trump or his administration. Speak now or be complicit in evil.” Even a traditionally pro-Trump Catholic group, Knights Templar International, which backed Trump in both the 2016 and 2024 elections, issued a full-throated rebuke, calling the image deeply offensive and demanding a public apology to upset Christian communities. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly also joined critics, reposting a comment dismissing Trump’s Red Cross doctor explanation that read “He thinks you’re so stupid.”

A small handful of pro-Trump commentators defended the post, however. Hardline right-wing commentator Laura Loomer argued that the U.S. does not recognize blasphemy as a legal offense, and told offended critics to “move to a Muslim country” if they opposed the depiction. International actors also waded into the controversy. Iran’s embassy in South Africa, which has regularly mocked Trump’s policies since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, made a sarcastic reference to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in its comment, asking “Is it Epstein being cared for in the Healing Ministry of Trump?” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a formal condemnation, saying “the desecration of Jesus (peace be upon him), the Prophet of peace and brotherhood, is unacceptable to any free person.”

The AI image controversy was preceded by a harsh public attack from Trump against Pope Leo XIV, who has become one of the most prominent global critics of Trump’s foreign and domestic policy. Shortly before sharing the image Sunday, Trump posted a tirade against the pope on his social media platform, criticizing Leo’s stances on crime and foreign policy, and attempting to drive a wedge between the pope and his brother, a supporter of Trump’s MAGA movement. “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart. I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA,” Trump wrote. He added bluntly: “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States.”

Pope Leo has previously spoken out against multiple Trump administration policies, including the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the Israeli military campaign in Lebanon, and Trump’s harsh crackdown on undocumented immigrants within the U.S. Just days before the feud erupted, the Archbishop of Washington DC Cardinal Robert McElroy delivered a fiery anti-war sermon at a peace mass, calling on Christians to move beyond prayer and actively advocate for an end to conflicts. “As citizens and believers in this democracy that we cherish so deeply, we must advocate for peace with our representatives and leaders. It is not enough to say we have prayed. We must also act… our president will move to reenter this immoral war,” McElroy said. “No. Not in our name. Not at this moment. Not with our country.” Multiple cardinals also confirmed their opposition to Trump’s war policies in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday. Last week, a Catholic publication revealed that the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. had been summoned to the Pentagon earlier this year and reprimanded by a senior U.S. official, who told the envoy the U.S. government would act with no constraint on the global stage.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Pope Leo pushed back against Trump’s attacks, reaffirming his commitment to spreading the Gospel message of peace. “I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do,” the pope said. “We are not politicians. We don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.”

The incident has already had electoral ripple effects ahead of the November 2026 U.S. midterm elections. The Iraqi Christian Foundation issued a public call for U.S. Catholics to vote against Trump’s Republican Party, writing on X “We call on all Chaldean Catholics & other Catholics in the USA to vote against the Republicans or abstain from voting in the 2026 elections. We stand with Pope Leo XIV!” Support for the pope extended globally across religious lines, with prominent Muslim leaders and organizations also backing Leo. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammed Ghalibaf wrote “Honoring Pope Leo’s fearless stand! He condemns the war crimes of Israel and the US… thank you for this light!” The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the U.S., issued a statement saying it stands in solidarity with the pope, noting that “Between denigrating the pope, portraying himself as Jesus (peace be upon him), and sarcastically praising Allah, the president’s mockery of religion is both deranged and insulting.” Controversial Muslim-American influencer Sneako, who has more than one million followers on X, added: “We stand with the Pope and the beautiful religion of Catholicism. Trump is committing the greatest act of blasphemy. If you love America, condemn this evil immediately.”

A prominent pro-Israel advocacy organization has upended longstanding U.S. policy orthodoxy around American military support for Israel, with J Street announcing in a new policy document released Monday that it is calling for an immediate end to direct, U.S. taxpayer-funded military assistance to the Jewish state.

For years, J Street positioned itself as a moderate pro-Israel voice that backed unrestricted U.S. provision of free defensive military systems to Israel, including ongoing replenishments for the country’s Iron Dome air defense network. The group’s new framework marks a sharp break from that prior stance: under the updated policy, J Street now argues the U.S. should continue to sell Israel short-range air defense and ballistic missile defense capabilities — but Israel must cover the full cost of these acquisitions with its own public funds.

In justifying the historic policy shift, J Street pointed to Israel’s robust economic and financial standing. “Israel faces real security challenges that require a significant defense investment. With a per capita GDP comparable to leading U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom, France and Japan, as well as an annual defense budget of over $45 billion, it has the financial means to address these challenges,” the group wrote. “It does not require almost $4 billion per year in U.S. financial subsidies to purchase weapons.”

J Street added that continuing the current model of unrestricted direct aid is both fiscally unnecessary and politically damaging, fueling avoidable tensions in U.S. domestic politics and straining bilateral ties between Washington and Jerusalem. Under the existing structure of U.S. military assistance, American taxpayer dollars are allocated to Israel, which is then required to spend those funds on defense equipment manufactured by U.S. weapons contractors.

J Street defines its core mission as organizing pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy American voters to advance U.S. policies aligned with shared Jewish and democratic values, with the goal of securing Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish homeland. The group’s support base is heavily concentrated within the Democratic Party, whose broader base has seen a rapid shift in attitudes toward Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The policy change comes amid a dramatic reevaluation of U.S. support for Israel across the American political landscape, driven by shifting public opinion following more than 10 months of war in Gaza that has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. For J Street specifically, the shift closely tracks the changing trajectory of the Democratic Party, where progressive voters and elected officials have increasingly pushed for cuts to military aid over humanitarian and human rights concerns.

Earlier this month, high-profile progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — who is widely speculated to be preparing a run for higher national office — announced she would no longer vote for any U.S. military support for Israel, reversing her prior position of backing defensive weapons transfers in a move that aligned with growing demands from her progressive base. Notably, Ocasio-Cortez’s announcement followed a surprise revelation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year, when he declared that Israel would not seek to renew its current military aid package with the U.S. when it expires in 2028. “I want to taper off the military aid within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told *The Economist* in January, “all the way down to zero.”

J Street’s new policy mirrors a key provision of Ocasio-Cortez’s stance, requiring that all future arms sales to Israel — which the country pays for with its own funds — must be “fully consistent with American law.” U.S. statute prohibits security assistance to any country whose government engages in a consistent pattern of gross human rights violations, or that blocks or restricts the delivery of U.S.-funded humanitarian aid to civilian populations.

“U.S. arms sales to Israel should be further conditioned to incentivize alignment with American interests and laws — as has been the case with other allies and partners — when their behavior is inconsistent with U.S. interests,” J Street wrote. The group stopped short of cutting all security ties with Israel, however, emphasizing that the U.S.-Israel alliance delivers tangible benefits to American national security.

J Street noted that Washington and Jerusalem broadly share core strategic interests, writing: “The U.S. also benefits meaningfully from the relationship. Intelligence sharing has been critical in campaigns such as the fight against ISIS, while joint operations such as Israel’s 2006 strike on Syria’s secret nuclear facility have advanced shared security goals.” With roughly 500,000 American citizens residing in Israel, the group added that continued, conditional arms sales to Israel remain a legitimate U.S. national security priority.

In a fresh demonstration of Pyongyang’s accelerating military modernization push, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a new series of missile launches from the country’s newly commissioned 5,000-ton-class destroyer Choe Hyon over the weekend, state media confirmed Tuesday. The test activity marks the third round of weapons trials from the recently unveiled warship, as Kim doubles down on his pledge to turn the North Korean navy into a nuclear-capable force capable of projecting power across regional waters.

According to North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, Sunday’s test involved the launch of two strategic cruise missiles and three anti-ship missiles from the Choe Hyon, a vessel first publicly unveiled in April 2025. The outlet reported that the strategic cruise missiles flew for more than two hours along pre-planned flight paths over North Korea’s western sea, while the anti-ship missiles completed a 30-plus-minute flight before both types of weapons hit their designated targets with pinpoint accuracy. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), another state-run media outlet, published visual footage of the test, showing Kim and senior military officials observing from a nearby pier as a missile trailed smoke while arcing away from the destroyer’s deck.

This latest test comes just one month after Kim oversaw two prior rounds of missile launches from the Choe Hyon, when he first announced plans to accelerate the nuclear arming of North Korea’s naval forces. Following Sunday’s successful trials, Kim reaffirmed that his administration remains committed to the “limitless expansion” of the country’s nuclear deterrent forces. He also issued new, unspecified directives to enhance Pyongyang’s nuclear strike capacity and rapid response readiness, and reviewed development blueprints for two additional 5,000-ton-class destroyers currently under construction, Rodong Sinmun reported.

Kim has repeatedly framed the development of the Choe Hyon-class destroyers as a transformative milestone for North Korea’s military, saying the vessels will drastically extend the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his armed forces. State media outlines that the warship is engineered to carry a full suite of combat systems, including surface-to-air defense weapons, anti-ship armaments, and both nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. While South Korean government officials and independent defense analysts suspect the destroyer program benefited from technical assistance from Russia amid deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, many experts have raised questions about whether the Choe Hyon is already fully combat-ready.

The troubled history of North Korea’s second Choe Hyon-class vessel, the Kang Kon, has added to these outside doubts. The ship was first unveiled in May 2024, but it sustained serious damage during a botched launch ceremony at the Chongjin port in the country’s northeast, triggering a public rebuke from an angered Kim Jong Un. While Pyongyang announced the Kang Kon was successfully relaunched in June 2024 following repairs, independent defense analysts have not confirmed the vessel is fully operational today.

Per North Korean state media, construction of the third Choe Hyon-class destroyer is ongoing at the Nampo shipyard on the country’s western coast, with completion targeted for October to coincide with the founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

Sunday’s test adds to an unprecedented surge in North Korean weapons testing activity this year, as Pyongyang pushes to expand its arsenal of nuclear-capable systems targeting South Korea against a backdrop of steadily deteriorating inter-Korean relations and a years-long stalemate in diplomatic talks over denuclearization. Just last week, North Korea conducted a separate slate of tests that state media confirmed included trials of new ballistic missiles fitted with cluster-bomb warheads, while senior Pyongyang officials issued harsh public remarks mocking South Korea’s recent overtures for improved cross-border ties.

Diplomatic dialogue between North Korea, the United States and South Korea has been frozen since 2019, when talks between Kim Jong Un and then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed with no agreement on denuclearization. Kim has since adopted an uncompromising hard-line stance toward Seoul, redefining South Korea as Pyongyang’s “most hostile” adversary, and rejected offers from the second Trump administration to resume dialogue, demanding that Washington drop its insistence on denuclearization as a precondition for any new negotiations.

In recent years, Kim has prioritized deepening strategic ties with major global powers aligned against the U.S.-led international order. North Korea has supplied thousands of troops and large volumes of conventional weapons to support Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while Pyongyang has also strengthened its longstanding alliance with China, North Korea’s primary economic lifeline. Last week, Kim held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and publicly voiced full backing for Beijing’s stated goal of building a “multipolar world.”

High-stakes negotiations between U.S. and Iranian delegations in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad collapsed over the weekend, with Iran’s top diplomat accusing the Trump administration of tanking a near-final preliminary ceasefire agreement through unrealistic, overreaching demands that brought an end to marathon talks aimed at ending a six-week open conflict.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, outlined the breakdown in a public post to social media Sunday, noting that the weekend discussions marked the first high-level direct engagement between the two nations in 47 years. Araghchi emphasized that Iran entered the bargaining process in good faith to end the ongoing war, but as negotiators closed in on a finalized Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, the U.S. side shifted its demands, insisted on maximalist positions, and maintained its economic blockade on Iran. “Zero lessons earned,” Araghchi wrote. “Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.”

This failed talks mark the second time in just two months that U.S. negotiators have been accused of sabotaging a potential deal that was widely seen as within reach. In late February, just hours before U.S. and Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Iranian targets, Oman’s top diplomat—who had mediated earlier rounds of negotiations—confirmed that substantial progress toward a negotiated settlement had already been reached.

The U.S. negotiating team in Islamabad was led by Vice President JD Vance, alongside special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump. During the talks, the U.S. delegation laid out a series of non-negotiable red lines, including demands that Iran permanently end all uranium enrichment activities and dismantle its core civilian nuclear energy infrastructure. Nuclear non-proliferation experts widely note that Iran retains the legal right to conduct civilian uranium enrichment under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Speaking to reporters after the talks collapsed, Vance pushed back against Iran’s accusations, claiming the U.S. side had approached negotiations with significant flexibility. “We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms,” Vance said.

President Trump echoed that framing in his own social media statement, arguing that most negotiating points had been agreed upon, but the core issue of Iran’s nuclear program remained unresolved. “The meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not,” Trump wrote.

Iran’s lead negotiator, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, echoed Araghchi’s criticism, adding that decades of conflict with the U.S. have left Iran with no reason to trust American negotiating commitments.

Within hours of the single-day talks faltering, Trump announced that the U.S. would implement a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil trade. Critics have universally labeled the blockade an illegal act of war that risks dragging both nations into a far wider, more destructive conflict.

Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, warned that the U.S. approach continued to prioritize dictating terms over good-faith negotiation. “It is concerning that Vance already suggests that the U.S. has put forward a final and best offer, suggesting that the U.S. is still trying to dictate terms rather than negotiate a better future,” Costello said. “We urge President Trump to walk back his blockade threat and for the U.S. and Iran to reengage and consider implementing practical steps where there is agreement to lower tensions and build on this fragile pause to the war.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the Trump administration is also considering resuming limited military strikes against Iran targets to complement the Hormuz blockade, which is scheduled to go into effect at 10 a.m. ET. The outlet noted that a full-scale return to a sustained bombing campaign remains on the table, though anonymous administration officials said that option is currently less likely.

U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, issued a scathing rebuke of Trump’s actions Sunday, calling the ongoing conflict with Iran illegal, immoral, a war crime, and a catastrophic threat to American public interests. Jayapal called for urgent action to remove Trump from office, saying that impeachment, invocation of the 25th Amendment, or a push for voluntary resignation are all on the table. “This is so grave of a situation,” Jayapal told MSNBC’s *MS NOW*.

For nearly two decades, Viktor Orban turned Hungary from a relatively quiet central European state into a global hub for transnational conservative politics, building a sprawling interconnected network of think tanks, academic institutions, and ideological initiatives designed to unite right-wing movements across Europe and North America while expanding Budapest’s soft power influence across the Western world. Following 16 years in office, Orban stepped down last weekend after opposition candidate Peter Magyar, a conservative newcomer, secured a decisive election victory with more than 53% of the popular vote – a result that has cast the entire future of Orban’s ideological project into major doubt.

At the core of Orban’s network are two flagship institutions: the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based think tank focused on engaging Anglophone conservative thinkers, and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), widely described as Orban’s purpose-built ideological training center. Founded by John O’Sullivan, a former speechwriter for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Danube Institute has become a key meeting point for right-wing intellectuals from the United Kingdom, funded entirely by the Hungarian government through the state-managed Batthyany Lajos Foundation. The institute primarily hosts British and American visiting fellows, who regularly contribute to leading conservative publications across the Anglosphere including *The Spectator* and UnHerd.

Gavin Hayes, a British visiting fellow at the institute, told Middle East Eye that the center has become more connected to the British right-wing intellectual scene than many domestic London-based institutions. “It’s an intellectual turnstile,” Hayes explained, “I’ve met more prominent right-wing thinkers from London here in Budapest than I ever did in London.” The institute has helped spread interest in the so-called “Orban model” of socially populist, nationalist politics across the British right, he added, providing a space for hard-right British figures to exchange ideas with ideological allies who share their skepticism of mainstream progressive policy. Back in 2019, Tim Montgomerie, former social justice advisor to ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even used a Danube Institute speech to call for a new “special relationship” between London and Budapest.

The MCC, for its part, has grown into one of the most well-funded nodes of Orban’s ideological network, receiving major state assets during his premiership – including 10% stakes in two large Hungarian companies, among them regional energy giant MOL. The institution has actively cultivated ties with prominent British right-wing figures, including Matt Goodwin, a Reform UK candidate who lost a February Greater Manchester by-election to the Green Party and was scheduled to deliver a talk at MCC just one day after Orban’s election defeat. MCC hosts an annual summit at King’s College London, and has directed more than half a million pounds – over 90% of its total funding – to the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF), an organization named after the late prominent British conservative philosopher.

The RSLF counts former UK Conservative minister Michael Gove, current editor of *The Spectator*, among its board members, and one of its directors is James Orr, a Cambridge theologian who also serves as a senior advisor to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Orr praised Orban’s government during an appearance at a 2023 Hungarian political festival, framing it as a needed counterpoint to what he called the anti-national heritage ideology dominating mainstream British politics. That same event drew a host of other high-profile right-wing figures, including US billionaire Peter Thiel, former Boris Johnson advisor Dominic Cummings, and Goodwin, who hailed Orban’s administration as a rebuke of what he described as “national self-loathing” in British public life.

Orban’s pan-European conservative project has long found particularly fertile ground in the UK, especially within the rapidly rising right-wing party Reform UK, which currently leads national opinion polls ahead of the next UK general election. Farage, Reform’s leader, has repeatedly praised Orban over the years, rejecting criticisms of the Hungarian leader’s authoritarian tendencies and framing him as the future of European politics. “He actually believes in things. He does not sheepishly, slavishly go along with the European project… he firmly believes in the concept of the nation-state,” Farage said of Orban in 2019, and headlined a 2024 National Conservatism conference in Brussels alongside Orban, an event sponsored by MCC’s Brussels office.

Orban’s brand of hardline nationalist politics has also drawn support from leading right-wing figures across the Atlantic, and just last month he shared the stage with Argentinian President Javier Milei at a Conservative Political Action Conference held in Budapest, while former US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered pre-recorded video addresses to the crowd. Despite the network’s rapid growth over the past decade, its future is now unclear, as Magyar’s Tisza Party ran on an explicit platform that promised to end the use of public funds to build transnational political networks.

The party has pledged to draw a clear line between nonpartisan education and ideological propaganda, and has promised to take back state assets currently held by MCC. “No one knows what will happen,” Hayes said of the Danube Institute. “Effectively this is an arm of Hungarian public diplomacy, so the new government could come in and decide there’ll always be the place for an Anglophone institute.” But if the new government follows through on its campaign promises, Orban’s sprawling Budapest-based conservative network will be forced to find new sources of funding and new patrons to sustain its transnational ideological work.