JD Vance has come out swinging in defense of Donald Trump as public backlash mounts after the president posted a bizarre AI-generated image of himself as Pope.

“As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” the vice president, who converted to Catholicism, posted to X on Saturday in response to a tweet asking if he was “fine with this disrespect and mocking of the holy father.”

His mention of “stupid wars” presumably referred to that tweet’s author, Bush-era White House official Bill Kristol, who advocated for the invasion of Iraq.

Trump’s original post, which featured an image of himself decked out in a papal crown and robes with a large crucifix around his neck and finger raised to the sky, comes as more than a hundred cardinals of the Catholic Church convene in the Vatican for a conclave to elect a new Holy Father after the death of Pope Francis

Vance wasn’t alone in backing the president’s stuntafter Senator Lindsey Graham—who earlier this week called for cardinals to “keep an open mind” about selecting Trump as the new pope—also joked on Saturday the AI picture was “worth a thousand words” and that, while “there has been some resistance,” there would soon be “more updates to come.”

Even for Trump, the gag appears to have cut a little too close to the bone, with some pro-MAGA accounts slamming his “sacreligious behaviour” as “disrespectful and insulting,” even warning “you’re going to lose a lot of Catholic support over this.”

Others have also taken aim at Vance, writing in the comments under his post that “it’s not ‘fine’ for a President to behave this way and you know it” as well as taking aim at him for “any excuse to further your wretched career” and noting that “Zelensky has to dress up for dear leader but mocking the Catholic faith is ok.”

While the vice president might have publicly expressed support for Trump’s latest social media stunt because he’s “fine with people telling jokes,” he’s remained conspicuously silent about the plethora of memes about him killing off Pope Francis, given he was the last public figure to meet with the Holy Father only the day before his death.

Many of the images have seen Vance dressed up as the Grim Reaper. Others joked Francis had failed to “thank” the vice president for seeing him in a not-so-subtle reference to Vance’s now-notorious comments at a tempestuous White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier in February.