After US President Donald Trump lashed out at TIME Magazine on Tuesday for what he called “the Worst of All Time” photo on its latest cover, social media users celebrated the image as a subtle takedown.
The cover, headlined “His Triumph”, marked Trump’s role in securing the release of Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity. But the portrait — shot from below and slightly to the right — drew Trump’s ire. “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!” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, adding: “I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture.”
Online, critics were gleeful. “In one image, his top three tells are revealed: his real age-related alopecic hairline sans emotional support combover; his lewd, NOT masculine neck; and that place on his ear where he definitely did not get shot,” wrote Beth Crowley Carmel (mamabethcrowley) on Threads. “The pen is mightier than the sword, but the lens is mightier than the pen! Never before has a more passive-aggressive act of passive aggression been so exquisitely passively aggressed.”
On X, Scary Larry (@aintscarylarry) quipped: “Trump’s handlers had a hard time prying this TIME Magazine cover away from him. Every time he saw his neck in the photo, he couldn’t resist the urge to grab it.”
The backlash revived memories of Trump’s 2016 Access Hollywood scandal when, in a secret video from 2005, talking about the norms of being a famous man, Trump said, “They let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pu***.”
The infamous tape came about a month before the 2016 presidential election and set off a crisis within the Republican Party. Trump apologised for his comments in the video but also sought to downplay them as “locker room banter.”
Meanwhile, other social media users also offered memes as alternatives for TIME Magazine's cover.
In its feature, TIME Magazine focused on the recent Gaza ceasefire, crediting the effort to Trump’s team, including envoy Steve Witkoff and advisor Jared Kushner, whose “painstaking efforts” were highlighted. It suggested that the truce could turn into a signature achievement of Trump's second term, potentially marking a shift from war to what it described as a “new era” based on regional stability and rebuilding.
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