Quoted in "President Trump accuses Time magazine of deliberately using the worst photo ‘of all time’ on a cover praising his peace deal" (NY Post).
As for that LBJ portrait, you can see it at "The Presidential Portrait That Was the ‘Ugliest Thing’ L.B.J. Ever Saw" (Smithsonian).
As for Trump's question, "What are they doing, and why?" I think he answered it, they were going for an artistic effect — "a floating crown, but an extremely small one."
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117 comments:
The only people who see Time glossy mag, are all dying in the waiting room to hell at the sad fuck clinic.
He let them take that photograph. How did he think it would look having someone point a lens right up your nose looking for Boogergate.
Hey, Peachy ... What is the address of the Sad Fuck Clinic?
You do not want to know. well - it's the waiting room at Jiffy Lube.
Donald, you know exactly what they're doing as well as knowing the why.
As somebody from the publishing world, I can tell you that is 100% deliberate. That image is horrible and should never have even been considered. Floating crown my ass.
I think that that picture of LBJ was pretty flattering, given all of the other images of him that I have seen. As for Trump, well, they made him look old, and you know what? He is old, and he is wise.
This kind of thing is 100% expected from them, because they are very small people.
it's the waiting room at Jiffy Lube
I was going to suggest 430 South Capitol Street Southeast, Washington DC 20003
The executive editor of Time Magazine isn't even an American.
For people who always talk about the right and wrong side of history, leftists seem to be stuck outside the fence with no interest in finding the gate.
Former Law Clerk. There, too. Although the pages are all stuck together.
FormerLawClerk said...
He let them take that photograph.
For your sake, I hope this was meant as a joke.
Maybe there is some interesting insight into Trump's vanity.
Time posts an adulatory headline showing Trump towering over the world. The perspective is one of small people looking up at a giant bestriding the world; dictating terms to other nations. Very powerful stuff.
Trump is mad his hair looks bad.
The "M" of Time makes devil ears, or Dilbert boss hair.
Trump should cancel Naina Bajekal's visa. She's an Indian, somehow living in the United States. Probably illegally.
Professional portraitists (photos and paintings) get bored with the same old same old. They do goofy stuff like have Obama emerging from a wall of green leaves, and show Bill Clinton through a kaleidoscope. Trump's photo is nothing out of the ordinary nor even bad -- it may even suggest that many people "look up" to Trump's leadership even.
You can tell they photoshopped the photo to remove hair.
Not only that, by erasing the hair, they also clipped the full upper arc of his skull. Time denied Trump of his humanity. That's because homo sapiens are distinguished by a high, rounded skull.
https://youtu.be/05faunfwBis?si=1K1aUGHXjyq_NpxM&t=5
I agree, it's flattering, but not flattering in terms of "sex appeal," but it makes him look like a visionary leader, which he is.
Good catch Ralph L
I dig the photo. There’s a lot to take in. The gold in his neck evokes The Vulva
Not that you guys would know this, but the only time I see Time magazine is in the waiting room at my annual mammogram, which is a fitting prelude for having your boobs painfully smooched between two panes of glass. I guess that's a bit like waiting to have your tires serviced.
Smushed
They made him look like Biden.
"We praised Trump once." This is the cover TIME will point to when America lets out a collective groan the day Mandami is named "Man of the Year" by them.
Half Biden 🧟, half turkey. 🦃
The LBJ portrait is flattering, if you ask me. Maybe LBJ wanted a "dick pic"?
"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many 'dick pics' did you send today?"
AI Overview
Former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) was known to expose himself in public, and several historians and biographers have documented these accounts.
Documented incidents
"Jumbo" Johnson: Biographer Robert Caro and others have written about Johnson's nickname, "Jumbo," which referenced the size of his penis. According to Caro, Johnson would sometimes expose himself to others to emphasize a point.
Air Force One: White House reporter Frank Cormier recalled that during a flight in 1964, Johnson took off his clothes in front of reporters and waved a towel for emphasis while discussing the economy.
Tailor call: A recorded phone conversation with his tailor captures Johnson discussing a need for extra room in his trousers, stating, "...an inch from where the zipper ends, back to my bunghole".
Motivation and context
Historians believe Johnson's behavior was a display of power and control. He often used these tactics, along with other crude and intimidating actions, to assert dominance over his staff, rivals, and the press. This behavior, while shocking today, was largely ignored by the press at the time.
"His Triumph" is crude irony Nazi-referential.
Wince, you are on a roll lately. I'm glad and unsurprised that you finally reached LBJ, but don't linger. That guy did a lot of sexually sick stuff.
He let them take that photograph
Then I guess he's NOT such an authoritarian after all.
Note to FLC: the press is always swarming, always taking photos, always trying to get in position for the next shot. Your comment is kind of silly as the possibility Trump knew this one camera was taking this one shot are extremely remote, even for a consummate PR pro like Trump.
And even if he knew, what is he supposed to do?
We 79 year old men can get pretty sensitive about our thinning hair and the wispiness of our combovers. Nice to see he doesn’t use a toupee.
Wince: my dominance tactic is similar to LBJ’s. I disrobe in front of people I want to dominate. Then, they’re either so distracted by how tiny it is - “ohmigod, is that even technically a penis!?” - or they’re so convulsed in laughter, that they just agree to whatever I tell them. CC, JSM
You can tell they photoshopped the photo to remove hair.
As someone who's done a LOT of Photoshopping, including just this morning, I disagree. The hair halo is still evident with its white blurred edges melding into the TIME logo. The hard edge of his side skull is clearly visible but from this low angle you cannot see the high crown of his head. I'm sure it's still there. But ironically they missed his real crown in pursuit of the floating tiny crown imagery they were after (assuming Althouse is correct).
Yeah "dot-said," you already said that once. Go spam somewhere else.
Hey Mosby it worked for Harvey Weinstein. I saw today Gavin Newsome is still trying to get the taste of him out of his mouth.
If his rise to power was built on the size of his "Johnson," that explains the disaster that was his presidency.
If Trump just said it was a favorable story no one would read. It Time, and who reads that anymore. But by complaining about the cover, he's gonna get a lot more to read it.
Props to the presidential nosehair trimmer.
It is an extremely weird camera angle. The "Lets look straight up his nostrils look". I agree with Trump, how many good portrait photos are taken from below the waist? It distorts things. At least they didn't take a photo while standing a ladder 12 feet high.
DD Driver - 100% not Kamala
The LBJ painting is pretty good. He makes Johnson look a hell of a lot better than he did in real life. LBJ probably didn't like the all the DC stuff in the background, and wanted more of a full length potrait like the one Sargent did of TR.
I guess that’s the worst they could do after being forced to recognize the peace deal. As others have noted: weak people take cheap shots at their betters.
LBJ was lucky I wasn't his painter. I'd put him in front Andrew AFB with the Body Bags coming off the plane from Vietnam, and the USS Liberty.
Mike (MJB Wolf)
Time named Trump Man of the Year in 2024 and 2016. Though they may certainly give it to Zohran Mamdani this year. Nixon once won two years in a row back in 1971 and 72. It’s rare.
I take it as literal proof that Time Magazine people are... small.
It remains a fact that the best two photographs taken of Trump were his mug shot and that photo taken moments after he was shot......It's not that hard to take an unflattering photo of Trump, and the news people compete to do it. I suppose it all works out in Trump's favor. Trump runs against the bias of the press, and every day they strive to substantiate his claim....It's an unflattering photo, but, nonetheless, an evocative one. The tie is a stricture, the suit is a tube, and he's being squeezed out of it. Maybe it's meant as kind of comment on how the peace process worked or some such thing.
They also chose to highlight his senior turkey neck. As I’m in the process of acquiring my own turkey neck it seem kind of mean to me.
Anyone remember the gorgeous nude French guy in the cologne ad saying: Eef you vant to be remembaired vear vat I'm vearing, Mon Triomphe ?
OJ Simpson could not be reached for comment
I think they were really trying to make him look regal. But Trump- God love him- is as vain as they come.
The LBJ portrait eerily reminds me of Joe Biden.
It's hilarious they did the exact opposite. They made him much whiter and grayer
You have got to be kidding me. Regal? They made him look like a chemotherapy patient who could be dead in 20 minutes
The LBJ painting looks like it came out of a middle school art class.
For the same reason that the most beautiful First Lady in history will never make the cover of Vogue.
According to Grok, this is the 47th time Trump has appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Reagan had 46 covers, so this puts him over the top with the most covers ever. Grok may be mistaken of course...
That LBJ portrait is dull as a butterknife, but could easily be worse. I was hoping for a "Picture of Dorian Gray" type thing, where the artist had captured the weeping chancre of corruption that was the soul of Lyndon Baines Johnson. No such luck. Can one of you get some AI app to take a shot at it? If AI is going to consume half of the electricity produced in the world, it might as well be good for something.
Time in the waiting room at the sad fuck clinic….omg I love you…
That picture doesn't even look like DJT.
It reminds me of the photo that the libtard shitheads of The Atlantic worked up for 2008 presidential candidate John McCain. Normies just can't trust Democrat Party members in any way or any endeavor.
The perspective is one of small people looking up at a giant bestriding the world; dictating terms to other nations. Very powerful stuff.
Kind of... authoritarian? Maybe that's why he doesn't like it.
"this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?" It's just a visual smear. Besides expressing their uncontrollable TDS, they are doing it to cater to their prog audience and use their residual cultural power. But for all their academic, late-night, and magazine levers, they are not in control as they once were, which makes them a little desperate, so their shenanigans become a little too obvious to normies.
When LBJ called his official portrait "the ugliest thing I ever saw", he wasn't moaning about his appearance, at least I don't think so. I think he was damning it as a work of art.
I wouldn't call it ugly, that's not the adjective I would use. Jejune or naive, but then, I am not as blunt as a Texas hill country logroller. It looks like something a gifted teenager might create for a high school annual. The book, with its prominent title, "The History of the United States", is strictly amateur hour. Here's another Peter Hurd portrait for comparison. It's the same old shine-olla, only more mature.
That really is a terrible photo. It doesn't even look like him.
I wouldn't put it past the likes of Time Magazine to sift through hundreds of pictures looking for the most unflattering one they could find, and then to Photoshop it to make it worse.
And he's right.
I was years old when they did purposely did this to Michelle Bachman.
The SF Chronicle, longtime Hamas cheerleaders, ran the the cease-fire news in somber fashion on Page 1, purposely failing to mention the President's name until Page 10 - a break from its daily above-the-fold Trump-wailing. Just one more reminder that this city's marquee newspaper is run by incompetent, truth-averse children.
Siri says Trump has been on the cover of Time fourteen times. That sounds more accurate.
Time trying to stay on the ins with the TDS crowd. As if anyone subscribes.
Now here's what I call an unflattering portrait.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/93798/picture-of-dorian-gray
Normally, as a film director, when you get the camera down low, you do so to make your characters seem bigger.
For instance, Humphrey Bogart is short. And Peter Lorre is practically a midget. So John Huston put the camera down low, and we were looking at two GIANT men in a fierce confrontation in Sam Spade's office.
The Maltese Falcon, it rocks, check it out.
Now, maybe somebody at Time said that this was an impressive accomplishment, and we all should look up to Trump. So get down low, and make him appear big and impressive.
I doubt it, but maybe.
Anyway, the damn photographer got down low, real low, super-low. So Trump's hair is gone, and we are looking up his nostrils. And we see his ugly old chicken neck, too.
Wince beat me to it.
LBJ was always pulling out his pecker and showing it to people. He was proud, and just showing it off. Mostly to horrified (male) aides. Anybody in the men's room. He thought his penis was the most beautiful thing in the world.
He's the one who got us into Vietnam. The feminists ought to say something about that. I'm not sure they give a shit.
"How many men died because of LBJ penis pride?" Sing that song, Betty Friedan.
Time Magazine: "Look up his nostrils, America. Do you see the boogers? DO YOU SEE THE BOOGERS?!
"Cancel my subscription, Marge."
"But they gave him a halo. He's like an angel who got his wings."
"Cancel it twice."
"His Triumph" is crude irony Nazi-referential.
Undoubtedly. I'm guessing the senior editors only barely prevented the twenty-somethings from straightforwardly titling it "Triumph of the Will."
I read somewhere that the picture was taken by an AP photographer. AP was kicked out of the White House press room for not acknowledging the Gulf of America. So, this is, indeed, a revenge photo.
Bob Boyd nails it at 9:25.
They don't use his name. And the photo looks more like Biden than Trump.
Trump's hair is the most known part of his public image, and they make it disappear, on purpose.
Maybe some nitwits who don't pay close attention will subconsciously think Biden is the one who has triumphed.
It's kind of like that movie Face/Off where they take off Nicholas Cage's face and give it to John Travolta. Now Trump has Biden's face.
Meh, it's almost impossible to exaggerate Time's irrelevance. it virtually doesn't exist for most people under 50. It's the current events equivalent of Good Old Days magazine.
When you grow up you understand that the elites of the arts and media professions are all 23 year old emotional cripples no matter how old. Pissy pettiness is a lifestyle.
Statista and Quora both say Trump has been on the cover of Time at least 35 times. I've seen an interview with Trump from years ago where he shows off his framed covers and it was already a LOT more than 14.
They manipulate the images of politicians to fit their moods. When I was an elected, I could always tell if the mediaswine were with me or against me by the photo they used.
They wouldn't dare do this to a real authoritarian.
Of course a very real authoritarian would have final edit.
At least Trump doesn't sport a Silver Star ribbon that he was given as a member in good standing of the Redneck Mafia.
Barak the compromised epstein hack who couldnt give awsy enough territory
"Look up my nose, ye Mighty, and despair!"
I think that Time magazine secretlyi believes that Donald Trump is just a (vulgate for phallus) so they used a phallic image.
They should just admit irrelevance and rename it: "It's Time'.
Trump's right. That is a terrible picture and barely is recognizable as Trump.
'Times up'
Whoever is writing Joe Biden's tweets, suggests that Biden took the peace football 90 yards down the field. And he thanks Trump for carrying it over the goal line.
Or, as Time Magazine puts it, on their cover, "HIS TRIUMPH."
Joe Biden: "Hey, that's me! I'm on the cover of Time. You're welcome, America."
LBJ never saw the stuttering clusterphucks White House portrait
could it be photographer was emulating?
In Ayn Rand’s teen favorite book, The Fountainhead, the uncompromising hero Howard Roark is looking at the Enright House, a building he has designed, when a young photographer notices him, or more precisely the look on his face.
[H]e had always wondered why the sensations one felt in dreams were so much more intense than anything one could experience in waking reality–why the horror was so total and the ecstasy so complete–and what was that extra quality which could never be recaptured afterward; the quality of what he felt when he walked down a path through tangled green leaves in a dream, in an air full of expectation, of causeless, utter rapture–and when he awakened he could not explain it, it had been just a path through some woods. He thought of that because he saw that extra quality for the first time in waking existence, he saw it in Roark’s face lifted to the building.
To continue the story, for those who haven’t read the book, that photograph of Roark (mentioned in the above quote) makes it to the tabloid years later, when Roark builds an unconventional temple and gets sued by the client for building a non-temple/sacrilege. The photo runs with a caption: “Are you happy, Mr. Superman?”
Waiting for the left to use that pic as proof he was not shot in the ear.
Sure he brokered the beginnings of an amazing ME peace deal. But can't you see he's not pretty? We brought photographic evidence. Honestly, isn't pretty the only really important thing?
"Joe Biden: "Hey, that's me! I'm on the cover of Time. You're welcome, America."
Highly plausible, because the first thing I thought when I saw the photo was that it looked like Joe Biden.
Besides its starchy blandness, Peter Hurd's LBJ portrait is utterly devoid of personality. Maybe Johnson refused to sit for the painting. That's possible; he was notoriously ornery. Or perhaps Hurd disliked his subject and painted him as a soulless cipher. If so he hit the nail on the head.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1978151218556854465
According to the Time website, Trump had 43 covers as of last December. Nixon has the record, at 55. https://time.com/5928282/donald-trump-time-covers/
’Statista and Quora both say Trump has been on the cover of Time at least 35 times.’
Have your AI call my AI. ;)
@FullMoon 1:07 that’s hilarious
The cover looks fairly positive considering the source. If Trump is "the leader Israel needed," rather than Netanyahu, that would be another plus.
But then, I thought Peter Hurd's painting of LBJ was accurate and also fairly positive -- certainly better than David Levine's cartoons. The Graham Sutherland painting of Churchill that Clemmie burned was not flattering or even very well painted. Rather like the Time photo of Trump, it made a lot out of the throat wrinkles.
Have your AI call my AI. ;)
AI is destroying the old internet economy. On Google, it would give us a bunch of websites. And we would click through the most relevant response. And often we would go to a place where people shared knowledge. So the internet was this fantastic place where you could find out things. People complained about Wikipedia, because humans could alter it, and there was bias, and blah blah blah. That was the big danger to education, back in the day. Wikipedia! You can't trust it.
Now, you search something on Google, most people don't even bother clicking on the links to go to websites. We just read what the AI says. It speaks with the voice of authority. And then we repeat it. And then we discover, the fucking AI is insane.
It's a horrible shortcut that takes us away from human ingenuity, imagination, and labor. The computer software takes our work, recites it and regurgitates it, without understanding anything.
I've seen some cool and fun AI videos. Maybe these are early days and I should just be patient. But I see a lot of downsides to this "new" economy. Although my family does own one AI stock, just in case I'm wrong about how bad this technology is for humanity.
Well no i dont i actually track the links unfrozen caveman that i am
’And then we discover, the fucking AI is insane.’
I agree and don’t really care for AI. And that may have been the first time I’ve used Siri to answer a question, and was curious if it would give an answer. I use Wikipedia to look up things like past golf tournament winners or dates of events, but I’m skeptical of most everything else.
Ais always go crazy see the M 5 to Singularity
They showed his neck vagina. That’s what he’s really upset about.
The computer software takes our work, recites it and regurgitates it, without understanding anything.
Therein lies the problem. Garbage in, garbage out, as it was and ever shall be, but now with added RECURSION!
A few more iterations of AI training itself on AI-generated clickbait websites, and we'll be told that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with a helicopter, or perhaps a pterodactyl.
A few more iterations of AI training itself on AI-generated clickbait websites, and we'll be told that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with a helicopter, or perhaps a pterodactyl.
AI will be certain he rode atop a triceratops. He hid behind the frill when Pompey shot at him with an AR-15.
Maybe Caro will provide some insight. Checking Wikipedia, "Caro provided a few more updates in a February 2025 interview with Smithsonian magazine, where he revealed that he had written 980 pages for his manuscript."
Tina Trent said…
“Not that you guys would know this, but the only time I see Time magazine is in the waiting room at my annual mammogram, which is a fitting prelude for having your boobs painfully smooched between two panes of glass. I guess that's a bit like waiting to have your tires serviced.”
They used to rotate your tires.
PM said...
“They should just admit irrelevance and rename it: ‘It's Time'.”
Or ‘The Time’ and put Morris Day on the cover.
I see that picture and wonder why the photographer and editors decided to put Trump in that perspective.
“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves.” from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
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