Time magazine received a barrage of criticism after it published a cover with President Joe Biden looking cool with mirrored shades as Russian President Vladimir Putin stares back in their reflection.
"This cover attempts to make Joe Biden look cool," Tim Young, a political satirist, told Fox News, "but even in their flattering depiction of his face — a drawing because he would look incredibly elderly and weak in a current high-def pic — he has his typical gaping mouth that makes him look clueless and afraid of Putin who is staring him down with a confident smirk."
The illustration features Biden with his signature aviators looking at the Russian president along with the accompanying headline, "Taking on Putin." The magazine published the cover as Biden prepares to meet with Putin at a summit in Geneva next week.
"What kind of fan fiction is this?" asked the (U.K.) Daily Mail, which also posted the upcoming magazine cover.
For years, Time published covers criticizing former President Donald Trump. One cover showed the Oval Office filling with water amid a "stormy situation." In 2018, Time published a picture of a little girl crying as the U.S. Border Patrol detained her mother, but she was never separated from her mother, according to the girl's father.
"I can't help but remember the cover of Time where their editors pushed a lie by editing a Honduran child they claimed to have been separated from her parents by Trump on the cover with Trump. It turned out the child hadn't been separated at all, but that image had been used to ruin Trump, which was their entire biased game for four years," Young said.
Time, however, stood by the picture, saying it was "an image America could not ignore."
Also, in 2018, Time published a photo of Putin's and Trump's faces melding together, symbolizing collusion with the Russian president. Now, Time is portraying Biden as someone who is going to be tough on Putin. The image struck an apparent nerve on Twitter, prompting a barrage of tweets.
"giving him a pipeline of leverage into Europe is NOT taking him on. It's giving in," Richard Grenell, former acting director of U.S. intelligence, tweeted.
One Twitter user mocked the cover while invoking Biden's favorite ice cream flavor. "Holy Frickin' Chocolate Chocolate Chip," Tom Bevan tweeted.
"Yea, Putin is quivering in his boots after Biden handed him his number one geopolitical infrastructure project on a platter so he can work with the Germans on climate change. What a joke," Cliff Sims tweeted.
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