iPhone background of Donald Trump is just a picture of himself

It’s no secret that Donald Trump is a big fan of himself. Countless mental health professionals, and even his fellow Republicans, have diagnosed the former president as an angry narcissist. But the new pictures circulating on social media may show Trump’s narcissism in the most direct ways possible. The background on Trump’s iPhone is just a picture of himself.

The image on the home screen of Trump’s phone appears to have been taken on July 19, 2019, while the new fascist con man was occupying the White House, and was captured by Getty Images photographer Chip Somodevilla. Trump, who often criticized other presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden for spending too much time on vacation, “traveled to New Jersey to host a fundraising dinner and spend the weekend at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster,” according to the caption from Getty Images.

For context, the picture was taken during the peak of Trump’s family separation policy for immigrants, which forcibly separated children from their parents at the border and placed them in the same kind of camps Trump swore to abolish. When the picture was taken, Trump’s lawyers at the Justice Department had just argued in court that the U.S. government is not responsible for providing detained children with soap or toothpaste. They also argued that it was not necessary to provide bedding for immigrant children while they slept on the floor in overcrowded government-run cages. As you know, the good old days of Trump.

The photos revealing Trump’s background – which were posted on Reddit before being deleted on Tuesday for unknown reasons – show Trump with a group of YouTubers known as the Nelk Boys. The men, who also host a podcast called Full Send, often pull pranks in their videos, such as recently bringing a food truck to Springfield, Ohio, where they asked people to buy their dogs and cats, referencing the racist meme Trump popularized, which falsely claimed that immigrants from Haiti were eating pets.

It is not immediately clear where the Nelk Boys photos on Reddit came from as they do not appear on the podcast hosts’ social media channels or those directly associated with Trump or his inner circle, to Gizmodo’s knowledge. Gizmodo only learned of this strange fact after reporter Carl Bodie brought it up for the first time on Tuesday through a post on Bluesky, but this phone background is not new, as can be seen through the analysis of photos and old videos with Trump’s phone appearing.

Senator Eric Schmidt, the Republican senator from Missouri who is running for re-election this year, posted a photo with Trump on his Facebook page on October 5, where you can also see Trump’s background. Schmidt traveled with Trump to Butler, Pennsylvania, that notorious gathering where Elon Musk bounced up and down, exposed his stomach, and generally seemed really weird. It is rumored that Schmidt is on Trump’s “shortlist” for attorney general.

If you zoom in on the photo of the phone on the table, you can see Trump’s background indicating the camera. It’s harder to see than the photos that circulated this week on social media, but it’s definitely the same background.

A video clip of Trump playing golf in late 2023 clearly shows the former president’s phone with the strange background screen as well. Benny Johnson, a right-wing influencer recently exposed as receiving significant funds for a government-linked political influence operation by the Russian government, posted a video of Trump’s golf cart on YouTube in December 2023.

The image is pixelated when zoomed in, but once the image is seen elsewhere, it is apparent that it is the same 2019 picture that Trump seems to have been using as his background for some time now.

Johnson even comments on Trump’s phone background in his video, and instead of seeing it as a sign of a mentally ill and self-absorbed person, the 37-year-old influencer seems to love it.

“Have you seen Donald Trump’s phone there?” Johnson asks in the video. “The back screen of Donald Trump’s phone shows that Donald Trump is walking in this way. The background of Donald Trump is Donald Trump, staring into the camera and pointing.”

“Man! Do you love this guy more? He knows he’s a meme. And Johnson adds: “And that’s where his strength comes from.”

The former president continues his reelection campaign and holds his new fascist rallies, takes photos in disaster areas, and promises to send the military to pursue his political rivals on Election Day and beyond. Trump has made over 100 threats of prosecution or punishment against his imagined enemies, according to a new count by NPR.

However, Trump still appears to be neck and neck with Kamala Harris in opinion polls. With just two weeks left until the election on November 5th, Harris leads by only 1.7%, according to the national average of 538 opinion polls. The margins are tighter in battleground states that Harris needs to win to secure the White House. In Michigan, Harris has only increased by 0.1%, while she has only increased by 0.4% in Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, Trump is already ahead in the final days, according to the 538 state opinion poll average, with a 0.4% increase, if you can believe it. Whoever wins these three states is likely to win the presidency.

Trump, the convicted rapist with 34 crimes to his name, has a real chance of becoming president again in one way or another. And if that happens, it’s obvious that Americans will face a lot of trouble. Because the narcissistic president cares only about himself, as evident from his iPhone background, among countless other facts. He wants to inflict as much pain as possible if given the reins of power again.