Portraits of Trump allies draw criticism from fashion magazine

American fashion magazine Vanity Fair was accused of having adopted a biased political biasfollowing the publication of a series of articles on the first year of Donald Trump’s second administration. The compilation’s photographer, Christopher Anderson, has been singled out by critics as someone who intentionally sought feature key figures from the political circle of the current President of the United States in an “unflattering” or even “malicious” manner.

Come and understand!

The fashion magazine produced a series of articles on key figures in the Trump administration

The fashion magazine is criticized

Tuesday morning (12/16), Vanity Fair published an article containing interviews and portraits of members of the Trump’s entourageincluding Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The images were widely criticized by the public because they were extremely close to the faces of each of the professionals. Done under intense light and with little, if any, skin retouching, The photos highlight the expression lines, pores and dark circles of public figures.

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“Apparently they put a lens on the camera borrowed from the Hubble Space Telescope,” joked the host of the American talk show The Late Show, Stephen Colbert.

You can guess the rigor of Vanity Fair’s “journalism” just from the photos chosen by their editors. pic.twitter.com/HOqYIx76KU

—Jesús Enrique Rosas – The Body Language Guy (@Knesix) December 17, 2025

Among the criticisms made by the public, the accusation according to which the magazine had highlighted his political bias. For some readers, this being a fashion publication, the aesthetic eye of the team behind the article – admittedly refined – would be naturally disposed to “make anyone beautiful, like a movie star”, as fashion consultant André do Val puts it. “It looks like an episode of the series Veep,” he adds.

The Trump cabinet poses for Vanity Fair. pic.twitter.com/ammULZmDbK

—The XO Show (@latenightxoshow) December 16, 2025

By alternating scenes full of information and empty walls, a user highlighted that the photographer’s use of space would function as a strategy to “diminish and ridicule” public figures, reducing them to mere props amid visual excess and making them appear smaller than they really are. “Photography and framing are choices. The photographer made a choice”he added.

The public makes fun of the framing of the photographs

Vanity Fair global editorial director Mark Guiducci revealed that when Anderson began filming, vice president JD Vance joked backstage, “Is this where you say we’re all bad?” In the article, Guiducci also quoted him as saying, “I’ll give you $100 for every person you make look really shitty compared to me. And $1,000 if it’s Marco (Rubio).”

It is obvious to most people that Vanity Fair deliberately manipulated images and reported statements without context to try to make the WH team look bad.

And there is no one more loyal or committed to President Trump’s mission than Susie Wiles. She is one of the main reasons…

-Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 17, 2025

Karoline Leavitt gets an even bigger close-up

Photographer Christopher Anderson revealed in an interview that he photographed every member of the administration the same way, in an attempt to “break with the image that politics wants to project and achieve something more true”. However, in the case of press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the photographer opted for an even closer close-up than the one taken with the others. “You can even see the injection marks from the lip filler,” one user commented.

“I’ve never seen a magazine add wrinkles and rough edges to try to make a woman in her twenties look like she’s 40,” comments one user.

His photos were the most criticized on the web

Leavitt did not comment on the photos

Susie Wiles criticizes the article

Although she has not commented on the photographs, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles turned to X on Tuesday morning (12/16) to refute the author responsible for her article, Chris Whipple:

“The article published earlier this morning is a disguised and biased attack on me and the best president, the best White House team and the best Cabinet in history,” he said.

Wiles says Trump is the best president in history

His photos have been mocked as “jump scared”

His photos were ridiculed “jump scared without warning » by Internet users. Besides the focus on wrinkles and makeup flaws, the chief of staff’s expression seemed frightened, even uncomfortable, with arched eyebrows and wide eyes.

But Suzie, there are tapes pic.twitter.com/UgCGWEzU5a

– Michael Salfino (@MichaelSalfino) December 17, 2025

The photographer takes a position

In an interview with The Independent, photographer Christopher Anderson said the style of close-up photographs of politicians is consistent with the rest of his work. His CV includes collaborations with prestigious publications such as the New York Times, Esquire and the Wall Street Journal, in addition to having already received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for records of Haitian immigrants sailing to the United States.

“Very close-up portraits have always been a recurring element in my work over the years. Especially in the political portraits that I have done. I like the idea of entering the theater of politics,” he said.

See this photo on Instagram

A post shared by Christopher Anderson (@christopherandersonphoto)

Criticism of the work done for the series of articles was so strong that it led the public to claim that Vanity Fair revealed political bias by portraying key figures in Trump’s entourage in unflattering ways. “I know a lot of people interpret it as, ‘Oh, he’s deliberately trying to make people look bad,’ that sort of thing – but that’s not the case. If you look at my photographic work, you’ll see I’ve done a lot of close-ups in the same style with people of all political persuasions,” Anderson added.