It is a glowing story in a publication Donald Trump has long exalted – but for one catch. The cover picture, the president decreed, “may be the Worst of All Time”.
Time magazine’s paean to Trump’s role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, leading its 10 November issue, was accompanied by a photo of the president taken from below and with the sun behind his head.
The result, he says, is “super bad”.
“Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time”, Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“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. What are they doing, and why?”
Trump has made no secret of his desire to feature on Time’s cover and did so four times last year. The obsession has made it as far as Trump’s golf clubs – in 2017, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers on display at some of his properties.
The latest edition’s photo was taken by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the White House on 5 October.
Its angle did no favours for Trump’s chin and neck – an opportunity California governor Gavin Newsom did not miss, with his press office tweeting a version with the offending area pixelated.
The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of Donald Trump’s peace plan, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. The deal may become a signature achievement of Trump’s second term, and it could mark a strategic turning point for the Middle… pic.twitter.com/0bZDABIDGj
— TIME (@TIME) October 13, 2025
Meanwhile, a defence of the president’s appearance has come from unusual quarters: the director of information at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs stepped in to criticise the “self-incriminating” image choice.
“It’s astonishing: a photograph reveals far more about those who selected it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people obsessed with malice and hatred –perhaps even perverts – could have chosen such a photo”, Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.
“And given the complimentary photos of Biden that the same publication used on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the story is simply self-incriminating for Time”, she said.
The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with creatively capturing a sense of power says Carly Earl, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.
“The actual photo itself technically is good,” she says. “They picked this image because they wanted trump to look heroic. Staring up at someone gives a sense of their grandeur and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a serene moment – the image has a softness to it.”
Trump’s hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. And, while the story’s headline marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, “you can’t always please the subject matter”.
“No one likes being photographed from below, and while all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the aesthetics are not flattering.”
The Guardian approached Time magazine for comment.
