US Politics
White House shows off a stern-looking Trump portrait with a knock-off Austin Powers twist
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The White House just unveiled a new presidential portrait of Donald Trump, and the administration appeared to use a knock-off version of the Austin Powers movie theme to make the reveal in a video posted on X on Monday.
The official portrait replaced one introduced earlier this year for Trump’s inauguration. The new close-up image shows a stern-looking Trump in closeup wearing a navy suit and a red tie against a dark backdrop.
The posting on social media shows a sped-up time-lapse of a staffer hanging the portrait as the bootleg version of Quincy Jones’ Soul Bossa Nova — the music used as the theme to Mike Meyers’ series of Austin Powers comedies — plays in the background.
The portrait utilizes high contrast and dark shadows across the president’s face.
The first portrait released for Trump’s second term featured different lighting and a background, with a more evenly lit image, showing the president wearing a blue tie in front of an American flag.
Both portraits stand out from the one used by Trump in his first term, which was brightly lit and showed a smiling Trump in a blue tie, also in front of an American flag.
Trump’s new image is the first presidential portrait not to feature an American flag in the background since Richard Nixon’s in 1969, according to a gallery on the website of the Library of Congress. Most presidential portraits before Nixon’s predecessor, Gerald Ford, tended to be set against a plain background.
The White House website and President Trump’s Facebook account have been updated to feature the new portrait, which has been hung in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the West Wing.
open image in gallery
open image in gallery
The expression in Trump’s two portraits from this year is similar to the one seen in his Georgia mug shot from two years ago. His supporters used the image of the president at the Fulton County jail to depict him standing up against what they viewed as the deep state.
The Trump campaign was quick to capitalize on the image, putting it on hordes of merchandise.
In March, Trump complained about a portrait in the Colorado Capitol, which he claimed was “purposefully distorted,” and told Democratic Governor Jared Polis to remove it. The portrait was commissioned during his first term and had hung in the Capitol since 2019, but Colorado’s Republican lawmakers took swift action to remove it.
