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This is a positive story in a magazine that Trump has frequently admired – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, Trump declared, ""could be the worst ever".

Time magazine's tribute to the president's involvement in facilitating a ceasefire in Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was paired with a image of Trump taken from below and with the sun shining from the back.

The outcome, he says, is ""terrible".

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

“They eliminated my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that looked like a suspended coronet, but an remarkably little one. Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a terrible picture, and merits public condemnation. What is their intention, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition to feature on Time’s cover and did so four times last year. This fixation has made it as far as his golf courses – in 2017, the editors demanded to remove fake issues on display at several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was captured by a photographer for a news agency at the presidential residence on 5 October.

The perspective highlighted negatively his chin and neck area – an opening that California governor Newsom did not miss, with his communications team sharing an altered image with the offending area blurred.

{The hostages from Israel detained in Gaza have been freed under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. The deal could be a major success of Trump's second term, and it could mark a key shift for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defense of Trump's image has emerged from a surprising origin: the director of information at Moscow's diplomatic office stepped in to criticise the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photograph reveals far more about those who selected it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people obsessed with malice and animosity –maybe even degenerates – could have picked this picture", the official posted on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that that magazine featured on the front, notwithstanding his health issues, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she said.

The explanation for Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – might involve artistically representing a feeling of authority according to a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The photograph technically technically is good," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look impressive. Gazing upward gives a sense of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a peaceful state – the image has a softness to it."

Trump’s hair seems to vanish because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. Although the feature's heading complements the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

Few people appreciate being shot from underneath, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are unflattering."

The publication approached the periodical for feedback.