Vanity Fair’s eyebrow-raising tell-all story on the chaotic inner workings of the Trump administration was overshadowed by accompanying photos that showcased lip filler injection scabs, deep wrinkles, and weird shots of Secretary of State Marco Rubio that are reminiscent of “The Blair Witch Project.”
Writer Chris Whipple captured an unfiltered, up-close look at President Donald Trump’s closest confidants and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ surprisingly loose lips, but it was photographer Christopher Anderson’s images that took the online gossip mill by storm.
When the first batch of photos was released Tuesday, a zoomed-in shot of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s face spread like wildfire across social media sites. People pored over the sticky gloss smeared over obvious injection sites for her lip filler, and the foundation and mascara flakes tucked into crevices beneath the 28-year-old’s eyes.
Other less-than-flattering closeup photos of Vice President JD Vance, Rubio, Wiles, and top White House racist Stephen Miller were published as well.
MAGA talking reacted defensively, with conservative influencer Benny Johnson calling the snaps part of a “reality distortion machine” and tweeting that it was a clear “smear” piece.
A whiny Rubio also slammed Anderson’s work.
“It is obvious to most people that Vanity Fair deliberately manipulated pictures and reported statements without context to try and make the WH team look bad,” he tweeted.
On the other side of the aisle, however, many White House critics laughed and celebrated the unfiltered photos of an administration notorious for being obsessed with appearances.
But the raw truth came from Anderson himself when he told The Washington Post in a Wednesday interview that he has been taking these kinds of portraits for a long, long time.
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“It was my attempt to circumnavigate the stage-managed image of politics and cut through the image that the public relations team wants to be presented, and get at something that feels more revealing about the theater of politics,” he told the outlet en route to another photo shoot in Munich.
This style, he said, was more “close, intimate, [and] revealing.”
And that is something he clearly captured—for better or worse.
While MAGA revolted over the idea of publishing up-close, unedited pictures, Anderson said that to retouch the images would have been “a lie.”
“I would be hiding the truth of what I saw there,” he explained.
But hiding reality from the media is this administration’s M.O. In October, the president hated a cover photo used by Time magazine, despite the photo depicting him accurately. Soon after, the outlet capitulated to Trump’s complaints and changed the cover image.
Trump administration officials have attacked the media for how they portray them in other ways, too. The Associated Press was booted from the White House press briefing room until a judge intervened for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, per Trump’s demand.
Multiple media outlets gave up their access to the Pentagon when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth required prior approval for all published information.
Journalists and TV hosts who even hinted at a negative stance on murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk were attacked and fired.
Sensing a theme?
The media’s portrayal is crucial to an administration battling public relations nightmares over its inhumane treatment of immigrants while stripping Americans of affordable and life-changing health care.
And Trump’s deputy chief of staff Miller seems to know that.
The architect of Trump’s cruel mass deportation scheme approached the photographer after the shoot, seemingly satisfied with his work, Anderson recalled.
“And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye,” the photographer said.
“And he says to me, ‘You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people.’ And I looked at him, and I said, ‘You know, you do, too.’”
