Heather Cox Richardson: Trump isn’t the first president to compare himself to Jesus — the last one who did ‘planned to lead his white supremacist supporters to victory’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday stunned many observers when he approvingly quoted a right-wing talk radio host who compared the president to the “second coming of God.”

According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, however, this is not the first time an American president has compared himself to Jesus, whom Christians believe was the son of God.

Writing on Twitter, Richardson explained that the “last president to compare himself to Jesus was Andrew Johnson, before the 1866 midterms.”

She then wrote that Johnson at the time “planned to lead his white supremacist supporters to victory to roll back Reconstruction.”