TIME magazine’s latest cover celebrates Donald Trump’s “triumph” in his Middle East peace deal, but the US president is more concerned with the image of himself, labelling it “the Worst of All Time”.
Taking to his social platform Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump said: “Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time.”
“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one.”
“Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out,” Trump wrote.
“What are they doing, and why?”
Unveiled on Monday, the TIME cover featured the image of Trump alongside the headline “His triumph”, acknowledging what the magazine said “could become a signature achievement of Trump’s second term” in the peace deal brokered between Israel and Hamas.
An effort to end the two-year war in Gaza, the peace agreement has so far seen Hamas release all Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the release of close to 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israel.
Trump has a long history with TIME magazine, having been on the cover more than 40 times.
During his first presidential term in 2017, Trump falsely claimed he had “the all-time record in the history of Time magazine”. Around the same time it was revealed he had fake covers hanging in at least five of his golf clubs.
A complicated relationship, the TIME publication has featured Trump unflatteringly, as well as named him Person of the Year twice.
Prominent figures respond
It seems Trump is not the only one who views TIME’s latest cover image as unflattering, with other prominent figures calling out the publication’s editorial choice.
The official X account for Democratic Governor of California Gavin Newsom poked fun at the image, sharing a pixelated photo of Trump’s neck.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented on the cover, writing on Telegram that TIME’s choice of photo was “astonishing”.
“Only unhealthy people, people obsessed with malice and hatred- perhaps even freaks- could have chosen such a photo,” Zahkarova wrote.
In the comedy scene, late night talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert each took jabs at the image.
Kimmel, whose show was recently suspended for criticising conservatives, joked that following Trump’s anger at his TIME image, it feels like “every morning is a game of ‘who am I mad at today?”
“Is it the Cracker Barrel logo? Is it windmills? Is it Bad Bunny? Is it the Nobel prize? Or is it the turkey vagina slapping around under his chin?”
“I’m not sure if they’re even allowed to show his neck on TV,” Kimmel added. “Wouldn’t it be funny if the FCC fined us for showing his neck on TV?”
In a similar manner, Colbert made fun of Trump’s neck-fold on the TIME cover and suggested they replace the image with a younger version of Trump, such as him “with his friend Jeffrey Epstein.”
“Of course, the president of the United States is far too busy hammering out the details of a deal to end a generational conflict in the Middle East to worry about how he looks in some biweekly magazine … you would think.”