Trump Found a New Rant Topic

“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves.” So began his lengthy Sunday night post.

By Kylie Cheung  |  March 24, 2025 | 12:28pm
Photo: Truth Social Politics
Trump Found a New Rant Topic

Scarily often, with his narcissism and astonishing levels of pettiness and raging insecurity, Donald Trump can hold up a mirror to our worst, smallest inclinations. On Sunday night, the president railed against an official painting of him hanging in the Colorado Capitol, posting a screed to Truth Social that reads like a 2009 text message begging your mom to untag you from an unflattering family photo she’s posted on Facebook. The painting in question went up in 2019, so it’s unclear why it’s just now irking Trump to this extent—but then again, we are talking about an incredibly volatile, unpredictable, wildly unstable person, so it seems likely enough that he had a chance encounter with the painting over the weekend, it pissed him off, and now… we’re here.

“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves.” So begins Trump’s lengthy rant—relatable enough! It’s the rest of the 152-word post that quickly goes off the rails, at different points invoking former President Barack Obama’s hotness and threatening Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D).

“The [painting] in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before. The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older,” Trump wrote. “In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one.”

How did the offending portrait get made in the first place? When Republicans reportedly weren’t able to fundraise enough for an official painting of Trump in the state capitol, Democratic House Speaker Crisanta Duran snuck a political activist into the building, who then placed a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin over the spot where Trump’s portrait would have been. The stunt outraged conservatives, prompting a successful GoFundMe campaign for the painting of Trump, who now hates the painting, which is by a Colorado Springs-based painter named Sarah Boardman. 

Trump’s frustrations aren’t self-interested or petty, he says, because: “Many people from Colorado have called and written to complain. In fact, they are actually angry about it! I am speaking on their behalf to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on Crime… to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself!”

When Trump won reelection, we were given no shortage of explanations—namely, that people were anxious about inflation, or were concerned by Joe Biden’s obvious senility, or sick of so-called “distractions” in politics, like, say, acknowledging the existence of trans people. Maybe some of that was true. But now, we have a president who has point-blank told us to get over rising costs, while obsessively devoting his time to tracking unflattering pictures of himself. We have a president so old and removed from reality that he thinks his 19-year-old son knowing how to turn on a computer is evidence of an unfathomably high “aptitude for technology.” We have a president sending his henchmen—including his vice president’s wife—to scope out Greenland, not unlike how you might send a friend to tour a newly listed apartment for you. 

Returning to the painting of Trump at the Colorado Capitol: I’ve now spent a decent amount of time looking at it, and have concluded it looks like a three-way blend of Trump, JD Vance, and North Korea’s dictator leader, Kim Jong Un. It is very obviously a painting of Trump, sure, but the facial shape and eyes together feel like someone else entirely. 

Polis’ office has since responded to Trump’s attacks, with a statement to The Hill: “Gov. Polis was surprised to learn the President of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado State Capitol and its artwork… We appreciate the President and everyone’s interest in our capitol building and are always looking for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience.”

No word yet from Boardman herself, nor from Obama on Trump saying he “looks wonderful.”

 
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