Bill O’Reilly Winces At Trump’s ‘Dopey’ Photo Depicting Himself as Pope: ‘The Guy Just Died!’

Bill O’Reilly slammed President Donald Trump posting an AI-generated image of himself as the Pope as “dopey” and not the best message for his base.

O’Reilly joined Leland Vittert on NewsNation’s On Balance on Monday and while defending Trump’s controversial “dolls” statement on the consequences of his tariffs, O’Reilly pointed to the Pope image as just plain bad.

Trump recently dismissed the criticism that his tariffs will lead to shortages on shelves, saying, “they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

O’Reilly said there was “no strategy” behind the off-the-cuff remarks, but argued Trump was trying to send a message to Americans that they should “sacrifice” to bring China to its “economic knees.”

The former Fox News host pointed to the controversial Pope image posted by Trump as an example of his off-the-cuff ways, backfiring on him.

“The Pope picture is, that was just dopey. There’s no excuse for that. Yeah, I know, it was funny and maybe, but God, the guy just died, you know?” O’Reilly said.

Earlier, he called the picture “not smart” and “beyond the pale.”

Trump said that critics of his photo “can’t take a joke” after Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich noted that some Catholics were not happy with it. Pope Francis passed away late last month.

“Oh, I see,” the president said. “You mean they can’t take a joke? You don’t mean the Catholics, you mean the fake news media? The Catholics loved it.”

“I mean, he thought it was funny. Some people do think it’s funny, but he’s a president,” O’Reilly said in response to Trump’s defense. “I don’t, I would have advised against it had I been consulted, which I was not.”

Watch above via NewsNation.