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It is a positive feature in a publication that Trump has consistently praised – with one exception. The front-page image, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's tribute to the president's involvement in facilitating a truce for Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was paired with a image of the president captured from underneath and with the sun shining from the back.

The result, the president asserts, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the most awful ever", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that appeared as a hovering tiara, but an very tiny one. Really weird! I always disliked taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a super bad picture, and should be criticized. What are they doing, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition to be pictured on the cover of Time and achieved this on four occasions in the previous year. The preoccupation has reached the president's resorts – years ago, the publication requested to remove fabricated front pages shown in some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was captured by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the presidential residence on October 5.

The perspective highlighted negatively Trump’s chin and neck – a chance that the governor of California Newsom did not miss, with the governor's office posting a modified photo with the problematic part blurred.

{The Israeli captives in Gaza have been released under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, together with a release of Palestinian detainees. This agreement might turn into a signature achievement of his next term, and it could mark a key shift for the region.

At the same time, a support for the president’s appearance has been offered by a surprising origin: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry came forward to denounce the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photo says more about those who selected it than about the subject. Only disturbed individuals, people filled with spite and resentment –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", Maria Zakharova wrote on her social channel.

Considering the favorable images of Biden that the same publication featured on the front, notwithstanding his health issues, the case is self-damaging for Time", she noted.

The response to his queries – why did they choose this, and why? – might involve creatively capturing a feeling of authority stated by Carly Earl, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The image itself is professionally taken," she explains. "They picked this image because they wanted trump to look commanding. Looking up at a person evokes a feeling of their importance and Trump’s face actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a serene moment – the photo appears gentle."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has bleached that section of the image, creating a halo effect, she adds. And, while the feature's heading marries well with the president's look in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the subject matter."

Nobody enjoys being shot from underneath, and although all of the conceptual elements of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are not flattering."

The news outlet contacted the magazine for comment.