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This is a favorable feature in a publication that Trump has long exalted – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, he stated, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's tribute to the president's involvement in facilitating a ceasefire in Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was paired with a image of the president taken from below and with the sun behind his head.

The outcome, Trump claims, is ""extremely poor".

"Time Magazine wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the image may be the most awful ever", he shared on his preferred network.

“They removed my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that resembled a suspended coronet, but an extremely small one. Really weird! I always disliked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a extremely poor picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed clear his wish to appear on Time’s cover and did so multiple times in the past year. The obsession has extended to the president's resorts – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages shown in some of his properties.

This issue's photograph was shot by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on the fifth of October.

The perspective highlighted negatively the president's jawline and throat – a chance that the governor of California Newsom took advantage of, with his press office sharing an altered image with the criticized section obscured.

{The living Israeli hostages in Gaza have been liberated under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, in exchange for a release of Palestinian detainees. The deal might turn into a defining accomplishment of Trump's second term, and it might signify a key shift for the region.

Meanwhile, a support for the president’s appearance has been offered by an unexpected source: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to criticise the "damaging" photo selection.

It's amazing: a photograph reveals far more about those who picked it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people filled with spite and resentment –maybe even degenerates – could have picked this picture", she shared on Telegram.

"And given the complimentary photos of President Biden that the periodical featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the story is simply self-incriminating for Time", she noted.

The explanation for his queries – what did the editors intend, and why? – might involve artistically representing a impression of strength according to a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

"The actual photo itself is professionally taken," she explains. "They picked this image because they wanted Trump to look impressive. Looking up at a person gives a sense of their importance and his expression actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a calm instance – the picture feels tender."

Trump’s hair looks erased because the rear illumination has washed out that area of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. And, while the article's title marries well with his facial expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the person photographed."

"No one likes being shot from underneath, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are highly effective, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The Guardian contacted the magazine for feedback.