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It is a positive story in a magazine that the president has consistently praised – except for one issue. The front-page image, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's praise to the president's involvement in facilitating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was presented alongside a image of the president taken from below while the sun behind his head.

The result, he says, is "super bad".

"Time Magazine wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the picture may be the lowest quality in history", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that looked like a hovering tiara, but an extremely small one. Truly strange! I always disliked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What is their intention, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown no secret of his desire to feature on Time magazine's front page and achieved this on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has extended to the president's resorts – previously, the editors demanded to remove mocked up covers on display at several of his venues.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the White House on the fifth of October.

The perspective was unflattering to his chin and neck area – an opening that California governor Newsom seized, with his communications team tweeting a version with the criticized section pixelated.

{The hostages from Israel held in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, in exchange for a Palestinian prisoner release. This agreement may become a signature achievement of Trump's second term, and it may represent a strategic turning point for the Middle East.

Simultaneously, a support for the president’s appearance has emerged from unusual quarters: the spokesperson at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to criticise the "damaging" picture decision.

It's remarkable: a photograph reveals far more about those who picked it than about the individual pictured. Only disturbed individuals, people driven by hatred and animosity –maybe even degenerates – could have chosen such a photo", Maria Zakharova wrote on the messaging platform.

Considering the favorable images of Biden that the periodical featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the case is self-damaging for the publication", she said.

The response to his queries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a sense of power says a picture editor, a media professional.

"The actual photo itself technically is good," she explains. "They chose this shot because they wanted trump to look heroic. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their importance and the president's visage actually looks contemplative 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 light from behind has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she adds. And, while the article's title pairs nicely with his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the subject matter."

"No one likes being shot from underneath, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the aesthetics are not flattering."

The publication contacted the periodical for comment.