Donald Trump And JD Vance's Official Portraits: Mugshot Meme Vs Smiling Boy Scout?

Maureen Meehan

January 21, 2025

President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming VP JD Vance debuted their new presidential and vice presidential portraits last week and, well, they could not have been more different.

Daniel Torok, the President-elect's chief photographer, revealed the portraits on X. "We are entering the GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA," Torok wrote. His feed quickly filled up with hilarious commentary comparing and contrasting Trump and Vance as mafia don to blue-eyed Boy Scout.

We are entering the GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! ❤️🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/tU3nCgAqEi
— Daniel Torok (@dto_rok) January 16, 2025

"They go hard," wrote Trump's transition team in a one-sentence press release about the official portraits. There was no explanation about who or what went hard though we presume the two men in the portrait.

Clearly Trump's demeanor, eyes squinting, defiant mob-boss look on his face, is not a far cry from the mugshot seen around the world when he was booked into the Fulton county jail on charges of attempting to steal the 2020 presidential election. He was clearly fuming then. But now? Several years later and the leader of the free world, what’s he so annoyed about?

Read Also: Donald Trump’s Meme Coin ‘TRUMP’ Rallies 103% in a Day, Creates Billions Out of Thin Air

There’s A Method To His Meanness

In addition to evoking a tough-guy, almost scary, masculine energy in his 2025 presidential portrait, we now know that the 2023 mugshot went on to serve a higher purpose: it helped raise funds for Trump’s 2024 election campaign as part of a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The threatening face ultimately made its way to the recent launch of Trump's latest NFT collection, “Trump Bitcoin Digital Trading Cards,” on the Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) network.

CollectTrumpCards, the U.S. president as of Jan 20’s official NFT account on X, announced that buyers of 100 “Mugshot Edition” NFTs can claim them on Magic Eden by submitting their Bitcoin wallet.

So there’s money to be made on coins, as witnessed by the Saturday launch of the meme coin TRUMP (CRYPTO: TRUMP) that immediately soared to to $5.6 billion within just 24 hours.

And then there’s JD Vance whose bright blue eyes and congenial smile remind one of a boy scout leader in a small Ohio town who made it big and couldn't be happier.

Things sure have changed since Gilbert Stuart painted George Washington’s portrait in 1797.

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Photo courtesy of Trump-Vance Transition Team/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

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