A viral Marine One photo has been described as the most “psychologically telling” image of Donald Trump’s entire presidency.
US President Donald Trump said Kimberly Guilfoyle will no longer serve as ambassador to Greece after allegations that she offered access to administration officials in exchange for money and favours.
The take-down is brutal.
“One of the most psychologically telling photos I’ve ever seen,” states anti-fascist social media influencer Jim Stewartson.
“A perfect image of how Trump maintains his psychotic alternate reality. He now has a 360-degree Ivanka-shaped bubble to seal him in a warm bath of praise – and to protect him from narcissistic injury.”
Donald Trump's new press secretary Katie Zacharia offered a baffling response when grilled about her claims to be a lawyer.
The computer programmer was commenting on a picture of US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One helicopter with his new Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia, and Special Assistant Natalie Harp.
That strikingly “telling” photo has since gone viral, with commentators pointing out the physical resemblance of the women – and Mr Trump’s penchant for surrounding himself with attractive – and fawning – women at all times.
‘So beautiful’
US President Donald Trump is himself not averse to personal attacks.
Especially when it comes to appearances.
To him, they mean everything. They always have.
At a 2007 San Francisco event, Mr Trump told an audience how he had hired an inexperienced teenage waitress simply because she was “so beautiful”.
“I interviewed her anyway because she was so pretty. And I said, ‘Let me ask you, do you have any experience?’ She goes, ‘No, sir’. I say, ‘When can you start?’”
Little appears to have changed in the intervening 19 years.
If anything, his preferences have narrowed.
He clearly has a type.
Heart-faced. Blue-eyed. Blonde.
Just like his favourite daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Former press secretaries Kayleigh McEnany and Karoline Leavitt, former Attorney-General Pam Bondi and former Communications Director Hope Hicks all fit the bill.
And there are plenty more a little further behind the scenes, such as President Trump’s former legal representative, White House councillor and now chief Federal Prosecutor for New Jersey, Alina Habba.
New White House chief Press Secretary Katie Zacharia comes eminently qualified. Mostly.
She’s a MAGA true believer. She’s fiercely loyal to the President. She’s a heart-faced blonde.
The fact that Ms Zacharia’s claimed legal qualifications are questionable and she has little experience in public presentation is – so far – incidental.
And Mr Stewartson – a computer programmer and self-declared “high school graduate” – pulls no punches about what he feels Ms Zacharia represents.
“Her tweet history is worse than Natalie Harp’s. This is very bad,” he posted to social media.
“This does not just mean more noise. It means Trump’s information diet will become even more warped. The feedback loop keeping his psychotic alternate reality intact will get tighter.
“This is going bad places.”
‘I love women’
Mr Trump has long surrounded himself with fiercely loyal women.
“I love women, I think they’re great,” he told reporters in September.
But the women of the second Trump Administration have paid a high price.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem departed in March after a fiery clash with Congress where she attempted to defend Mr Trump’s immigration and deportation policies.
He fired Attorney-General Pam Bondi in April after expressing frustration at a lack of legal prosecutions targeting his political rivals.
Labour Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer quit in April over accusations of inappropriate behaviour and misconduct.
And Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard resigned in May amid political furore over failures in the war against Iran.
Then 29-year-old White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stepped down from the country’s highest-profile job in August.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s comments regarding daughter Ivanka’s physical appearance is a matter of public record.
He reportedly speculated “what it might be like to have sex with her”, former chief of staff of his Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor claimed in 2023.
And while his 44-year-old daughter declined to take an official White House Councillor role during the second Trump Administration, she’s clearly still on the President’s mind.
‘Experience and competence are well down that list’
“All you had to do was compliment him in ways most people would be embarrassed by,” former NBC chief marketing officer John Miller said of Mr Trump’s tenure as host of The Apprentice.
“Loyalty and being telegenic are very much how he would cast his cabinet. Experience and competence are well down that list.”
President Trump’s Secretary of War, Peter Hegseth, and Transport Secretary, Sean Duffy, were high-profile (and highly supportive) presenters on Fox News. As were his ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and former National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon rose to prominence through President Trump’s favourite sport, WWE Wrestling.
“Trump is always acting, always on stage … In his own mind, he is more like a persona than a person, more like a primal force or superhero, rather than a fully realised human being,” argues psychologist Dan P McAdams of Northwestern University, who penned the book, The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning.
And he appears to project this upon his employees.
It’s called pulchronomics.
That’s economist talk for the profitability of beauty.
Essentially, statistics show that people ranked as “highly attractive” tend to earn far more than those who aren’t.
It’s an unconscious bias. Usually.
Seen, but not heard
His new Press Secretary, Ms Zacharia, has a background deeply rooted in the President’s favourite pastimes. She appears as a right-wing commentator on Fox News and Newsmax. She’s a senior communications adviser for Truth Social, Mr Trump’s personal social media company.
She’s unlikely to rock the boat.
Just like the other senior appointments to the Trump Administration.
Meanwhile, President Trump has been holding fewer rallies. Attending fewer public events. Visiting fewer US destinations.
Instead, he’s limited himself to select functions at his own clubs and the White House. Billionaires, business titans, tech-bros and political aspirants are his guests of choice.
The rest can be a tough crowd.
Especially amid ongoing controversies.
He’s also abandoned his old Twitter (now X) social media stomping ground.
Now, he puts all his efforts into Truth Social – and the adoring crowd of followers he finds there.
“The features of Trump’s strange personality — his orientation to love, his proclivity for untruth, his narcissistic goal agenda, his authoritarian sentiments — can be fully appreciated and understood only if we realise that they revolve around the empty narrative core, the hollow inner space where the story should be, but never was,” Prof McAdams concluded in 2019.
The President’s had seven years to prove him wrong.