Bulwark Takes - This Painting Broke Donald Trump. Let’s Take A Look.

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein take a closer look at Donald Trump's portrait in Colorado's capitol, first displayed in 2019, that Trump has bleated he wants removed because he is incredibly unhappy with how he is portrayed in the painting. UPDATE: The Donald Trump portrait will be taken down at Colorado Capitol due to the president’s bleat.

All right, guys, a lot of dark, serious news out there today. So when you get one goofy item, you know, me and Sam got to get together and laugh about it. Mr. Trump is mad and he's bleeding again. And this is this time it is about a bad painting of him that is up in the Capitol in Denver, Colorado, where I used to work more on that in a minute. But here's here's the bleep. Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado in the state Capitol put up by the governor, along with all the other presidents was purposely distorted to a level that even I perhaps have never seen before. That's quite the sentence.

All right, let's keep going. The artist also did president Obama and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older. In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture. Many people from Colorado have called and written to complain. In fact, they are actually angry about it.

I'm speaking on their behalf to the radical left governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on crime, in particular with respect to trend to Aragua, which practically took over Aurora. Jared should be ashamed of himself. Take it down. I love how he's speaking on behalf of the people of Colorado. They're angry, not himself. He's like, it's not me. It's not me.

That's just a narcissist who cares deeply about this one random painting. It's the people of Colorado. They deserve better. I know. I know there's a lot of footage out there of uh what appears to be a 34 000 person rallying then for aoc and bernie but in fact those people who had come out to protest protest the painting take it down take it down i mean in fairness can we can we do we have to hand it to him it's a hideous painting of trump and god loved the artist if she did do it on purpose

i mean he's got these jowls it looks like he's got marbles in his mouth no it's going on me i when i first saw it i said wow the the sort of cheeks blend into the neck and it's just and it blends into the collar which is like you know it's all thick his coloring is a little more human though than in real life so in some ways the painting is actually nice Like his hair and skin color Is much like exists in the natural world Unlike his Unlike the color

What is it about this painting that is off Because now that I'm looking at it It's not like I first thought it was ridiculous Now it's not so bad It's the marble It's kind of the marble mouth kind of I think I don't know maybe it's not so bad he

doesn't he doesn't look like him as much the more i look at it the better it looks actually yeah yeah right am i it's growing on me a little bit as i stare as i hear the hair is fine the hair looks good it's i don't know maybe i feel like these guys do you ever see the videos from the guy that's the dude who's punching no i love these guys they they review couples and they decide which cup which person in the in the picture is better looking and they do you see this often when like oh i think it's her but then like the more i look actually maybe him you know and i'm feeling that way about this trump this is maybe this big panties maybe handsomer than he is in real life yeah he doesn't look as bad as he thinks obviously he's got an first of all how do you think this even got on his fucking radar like what the hell who

showed him this picture how do you someone at the golf course someone from some rich guy from colorado phil and that's it mr president phil and shits was golfing you gotta look at this thing in denver i think we should probably pull up here what trump what does like what trump thinks is a good portrait of himself let's pull up here on screen here is this horrifying image of trump in a kind of like a white sweater a white v-neck sweater with some white pants i love that he's at the white party in nantucket and it's a very dramatic sky behind him and this is this painting is i think it's up in mar-a-lago right yeah it's not nantucket yeah okay there you go the hand i go get invited to these fancy fucking parties i'm a regular american um the visionary is what it's called okay so that's what he wants and and that obviously is a very handsome photo it also doesn't

resemble trump though really no no i think he needs to find better uses of his time uh than to critique the portraits that are framed of him i did note that he put up after he bleated this when he put up two pictures of himself that he likes including the one that's like so much light on his face and he looks menacing and all that stuff so i like um i like some of the fun facts here in the article uh that the telegraph wrote shout out to the telegraph one was uh john cook a republican state senator when the when the painting was unveiled he said that the piece showed the strength of the american spirit i love this that these this is like a backfire of somebody just sucking up to trump yeah that guy yeah that guy like he's like i think it's

like this is just a free swing to suck out to mr trump i'm gonna humiliate myself by talking as ostentatiously as possible about how great this painting is and then it's like oh no trump hates the aura that's the thing they say now the aura the aura is so powerful this guy wasn't in john cook what was his name uh you know cook and mr cook he's in real trouble now mr trump does not like the fact that he praised that portrait he's gonna have to come up with a sentence explaining why he said it was the strength of the american spirit and figure out a way to get back in mr trump's's good graces. Friend of the pod, Jared Polis, a governor of Colorado, who's not radical left actually,

is maybe one of the most, it might be the most centrist governor in America. Honestly, he provided this statement, excuse me, the spokesperson did. Mr. Polis was surprised to learn the president of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado state Capitol and it's our our work we appreciate the president and everyone's interest in our capital building and are always looking for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience i've got some

notes for you jared um there's too much western art like it's like there's a lot of buffaloes it's western and and and cowboys and and horses well but i mean you know denver has a lot of there's a lot of culture besides cowboy culture the art yeah we have yokich let's put some fucking yokich paintings i'll get a real portrait of him or statues yeah replace replace trump with yokich that's something i'm for um but i i am i'm i'm an actual aficionado of the art of the carlo capital because sam i don't know if you know this about me my first job was i read the governor's mail i read the governor's mail in the bowels of the capital wow i was if you sent a letter sorry this is yeah if you sent a letter to governor bill owens i was the one that decided whether he got to look at it or not very few got through me usually i just replied to you saying thank you madam or sir

we appreciated your note i got out the auto pen auto pens are very controversial now oh yeah i was the auto pen out now you're interested i it was back then we're getting old back then it was one of these fancy auto pens it was like it was like a huge machine and i pedaled i pressed the pedal and then the other pen came out and it was very important i felt very important age 17 how old are you at that time i think i was what was that so he wanted to how old this auto pen experience is uh so he wanted 98 so i was probably 18 okay 17 so it's like what 20 yeah it was like 99 yeah yeah 25 i was a child yeah everybody asked me where my dad was when i walked into the capital and i was like no i'm just a fucking super nerd that is volunteering for the governor i have no parents here there are no parents around i was set when i was 17 i looked like i was 12 i was a late bloomer

anyway all right i want to close with this i don't think this is nearly the worst portrait out there what there are two sports nominees that come to mind for me is there which one which one let's go d wade i mean d wade is like objectively the worst sculpture i've ever seen or duane wade can you imagine being him when they reveal the? You were there in the unveiling. I know. And you have to be like, thank you. Nailed it. Ronaldo is the other famous one.

I think Ronaldo is the most egregious, because we'd love to Dwayne Wade, handsome man. Ronaldo is beautiful. So if you're going to do a portrait, or a sculpture, rather, of Ronaldo, it is incumbent upon you to make him look like a Greek god, like a Spanish conquistador. Well, Portuguese, but yes. Portuguese conquistador.

Do they have a different word for conquistador in Portuguese? It doesn't matter. It's just not Spanish. And instead, they made him kind of look ridiculous. Scary. Scary. they made him kind of look ridiculous scary scary is it anywhere what's that there's a famous jesus one too where it's like is that just water painting it doesn't look like jesus like come on give jesus a little bit of like uh you know form here it's just guys this is why you come

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