Election 2024

Donald Trump viciously mocked for terrible makeup that made him look like “a dirty old shoe”

People called out the hypocrisy of trying to ban drag performances while supporting a candidate who wears this much makeup.
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Donald Trump
Donald Trump Photo: Shutterstock

Donald Trump’s use of makeup is getting attention again online after a photo showed what many considered a poor application of makeup.

The photo in question comes from Iowa, just before that state’s primary caucuses.

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His hands have strange red spots on them, which has led to speculation online.

“Name this foundation shade,” the anti-Trump organization Lincoln Project posted on X.

Snopes, the internet myth-fighting website, noted that the picture came from Agence France-Presse (AFP) photojournalist Tannen Maury, who confirmed that the picture is “authentic” and was taken on January 6, 2024 at a Trump rally in Clinton, Iowa.

“I suppose that Trump could look worse, but it wouldn’t be easy,” Psychologist Dr. David A Lustig wrote, sharing another picture of Trump. “You’d think that a claimed billionaire could hire a makeup artist who wouldn’t make him look like a dirty old shoe.”

Some people called out the alleged hypocrisy of conservatives, who have spent the past several years arguing that people who wear makeup and wigs in public are threats to children – going so far as to pass laws banning drag performances in some states – while they fall in line to support Trump as their party’s presidential nominee.

“How much more makeup & wig work will Trump need before he is officially in drag?” one person joked.

“Seriously the Republicans are against LGBITQ but love a fellow who wears more makeup than a drag queen and claims $70,000 a year in Tax deductions for maintaining and dying his hair. If we did not know Trump sleeps with prostitutes the line could be blurry,” someone else wrote.

“Even when I wear makeup I don’t wear as much as Donald Trump does. The guy may as well be a drag queen,” one Ron DeSantis supporter posted.

This is far from the first time that Trump’s use of makeup has drawn attention in the media. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said that Trump’s famous refusal to wear masks during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was because he was afraid that the straps would mess up his makeup.

In her memoir Enough, she wrote that Trump put on a white mask and asked staffers what they thought.

“I slowly shook my head,” Hutchinson wrote. “The president pulled the mask off and asked why I thought he should not wear it. I pointed at the straps of the N95 I was holding. When he looked at the straps of his mask, he saw they were covered in bronzer.”

“Why did no one else tell me that,” he replied, according to Hutchinson. “I’m not wearing this thing.”

“The press would criticize him for not wearing a mask,” she continued, “not knowing that the depth of his vanity had caused him to reject masks – and then millions of his fans followed suit.”

A 2019 Washington Post story about how Trump’s company employed undocumented immigrants also noted his use of makeup, relaying a story from his housekeepers.

Trump loved Tic Tacs. But not an arbitrary amount. He wanted, in his bedroom bureau at all times, two full containers of white Tic Tacs and one container that was half full. The same rule applied to the Bronx Colors-brand face makeup from Switzerland that Trump slathered on — two full containers, one half full — even if it meant the housekeepers had to regularly bring new shirts from the pro shop because of the rust-colored stains on the collars. A special washing machine in the laundry room was reserved for his wife Melania Trump’s clothing.

While Trump’s fans don’t seem too bothered by his use of makeup, others joked about it online.

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