Nearly a decade into Donald Trump’s political career, it’s not news to anyone that he lies a lot. A Washington Post analysis found that he made more than 30,573 false or misleading statements during his first term, averaging around 21 erroneous claims per day. But it’s still kind of breathtaking to watch the master dissembler in action.
The latest cover of Time magazine shows Elon Musk sitting behind the president’s Resolute desk.
Time is obviously not the first to suggest that Elon Musk is president. The phrase has achieved meme status over the past few weeks as Trump let the DOGE leader and world’s richest man attempt to destroy the federal government as we know it. But many assumed this particular cover would enrage Trump, as he has a long-standing, retro obsession with Time.
Or does he?
When asked for his reaction to the cover during an Oval Office meeting with Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday afternoon, Trump said he doesn’t have one.
“Is Time magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that,” Trump said. “Elon is doing a great job.”
Several people chuckled off-camera chucked over this remark, so if you want to be generous, you could say Trump was making a joke — but it’s still a pretty weird thing to say!
Trump has previously lied about how often he’s been on Time’s cover and even put himself on fake covers displayed in his golf clubs. But this isn’t some obscure fixation from Trump’s youth. He lashed out at Taylor Swift when she was named Time’s “Person of the Year” in 2023. He complained about Kamala Harris’s August 2024 Time cover, claiming, bizarrely, that she looked like his wife, Melania.
To top it all off, Trump was named Time’s “Person of the Year” eight weeks ago! And the cover story wasn’t just a stock photo and analysis assembled without Trump’s knowledge or participation. He posed for the cover and sat for a lengthy interview. Then he celebrated 1980s-style, ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange while flanked by his wife, his daughters, and his vice-president-elect, J.D. Vance.
Here’s video of remarks Trump delivered in front of a giant Time cover before ringing the bell at the NYSE on December 12, in which he thanked the magazine repeatedly for putting him on the cover.
“It’s been an honor. And every time [I’m on the cover], it’s an honor, I will tell you,” Trump said. “And thank you very much for doing it. And thank the whole group at Time. Really professional people. Thank you very much.”
So either Trump mistakenly thinks these “really professional people” were all laid off in the past few weeks, or he’s only willing to acknowledge Time’s existence when the magazine is stroking his ego.
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