US President Donald Trump calls Time Magazine cover ‘really weird’, says bad angle was ‘worst of all time’

As he was returning to Washington aboard Air Force One from the Middle East to celebrate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, President Donald Trump fired off a Truth Social post sharing what was on his mind: the photo of him used for Time magazine’s latest cover.

Sure, Mr Trump conceded, the publication wrote a “relatively good story” about him. “But the picture,” he said in the predawn social media post, “may be the Worst of All Time.”

Time’s November 10 issue heralds Mr Trump’s “triumph” in facilitating a deal that “may become a signature achievement of Mr Trump’s second term” and “could mark a strategic turning point for the Middle East.”

The image of the ever optics-conscious president used for the cover captures him from below - an angle most amateur photographers know can rebalance a photo subject’s proportions and be unflattering.

In the Time photo, bright light hits Mr Trump’s signature straw-colored coif, making it look as if his hair is floating above his head.

The inside of the president’s right nostril is in full view. His navy-suited shoulder takes up more than a third of the cover. And his neck, squeezed into his shirt collar by his signature red tie, is nearly as big as his head.

“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,” Mr Trump complained.

“Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

Time did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr Trump has long been fixated with the magazine’s cover - particularly over its coveted Person of the Year recognition, which he received in 2016 and 2024.

Over the years, he has described the publication as both “a very important magazine” he grew up reading, and a “paper-thin” magazine that will “soon be dead.”

In 2017, The Washington Post reported that Mr Trump’s clubs hung a framed copy of a fake March 2009 Time magazine with Mr Trump on the cover.

“Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!” the fake cover’s headline said. Another fake headline read in all caps: “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS … EVEN TV!”

Mr Trump has previously publicly voiced his complaints about what he says are bad photos and portraits of his likeness.

Days before he decided not to participate in a 2023 Republican presidential primary debate, Mr Trump complained that Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” would “purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back.”

Earlier this year, a painted portrait of Mr Trump in the Colorado Capitol was replaced after he complained that the original one “purposefully distorted” him - a criticism that the artist denied.

While it’s unclear what Mr Trump might do about the Time cover besides complain, he has taken action in his second term seeking to control how his presidency and his administration are covered.

He has threatened to pull licenses from broadcast network stations whose late-night comedians he deemed overly critical of him.

The White House has denied the Associated Press access to events after the news service declined to adopt “Gulf of America” to describe the Gulf of Mexico, as he was demanding.

The Pentagon had also asked news outlets to sign on to a policy that says reporters cannot obtain or solicit information the Defence Department does not explicitly authorise. Media outlets across the ideological spectrum, including The Post, declined to sign on to the policy by Tuesday afternoon’s deadline.

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