Donald Trump weighed in on the controversy over the Olympics opening ceremony, which featured men in drag and a segment that some have interpreted as a satire of The Last Supper.
Appearing on Fox News‘ The Ingraham Angle on Monday evening, Trump called the ceremony a “disgrace.”
“The mocking of the Last Supper,” Ingraham said.
“I thought it was a disgrace,” Trump said.
Ingraham then asked him, if he is elected, whether he will “have enough influence on the organizers that we won’t be insulting Christians.” The term of the next president runs through 2029. The next summer Olympics, in 2028, will take place in Los Angeles.
“We won’t be having a Last Supper, as portrayed the way they portrayed it the other night,” Trump said. “I just think — look, I’m for everybody. I’m very open-minded. You understand me.
“You know me better than most people know me. I’m very open-minded, but I thought what they did was a disgrace.”
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony, denied that the controversial scene was based on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
“It’s not my inspiration and that should be pretty obvious. There’s Dionysus arriving on a table. Why is he there? First and foremost because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology and the tableau is called ‘Festivity’,” Jolly told news channel BFMTV.
“He is also the god of wine, which is also one of the jewels of France, and the father of Séquana, the goddess of the river Seine,” he said. “The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics.”