Donald Trump’s iPhone Wallpaper Is Just a Photo of Himself

It’s no secret that Donald Trump is a big fan of himself. Countless mental health professionals, and even fellow Republicans, have diagnosed the former president as a raging narcissist. But new photos that have been circulating on social media probably demonstrate Trump’s narcissism in the most direct way possible. Trump’s iPhone wallpaper is just a photo of himself.

The image on Trump’s phone homescreen appears to be a photo from July 19, 2019, taken while the neo-fascist grifter was occupying the White House, captured by Getty Images photographer Chip Somodevilla. Trump, who often criticized other presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden for taking too much vacation time, was “traveling to New Jersey to host a fundraising dinner and spend the weekend at his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster,” according to the caption from Getty Images.

For context, the photo is from the height of Trump’s family separation policy for migrants, which forcibly separated children from their parents at the border, placing them in the same kind of camps Trump has sworn to bring back. When the photo was taken, Trump’s lawyers at the U.S. Department of Justice had just argued in court that the U.S. government had no responsibility to provide kids in custody with soap or toothpaste. They also argued that it was unnecessary to give migrants beds or cots while they slept on the ground in overcrowded government-run cages. You know, the good old days of Trump.

Screenshot from a photo showing Trump’s iPhone wallpaper (left) and a photo of Donald Trump walking out of the White House before departing July 19, 2019 in Washington, DC, where Trump was traveling to New Jersey to host a fundraising dinner and spend the weekend at his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster (right) Images: Reddit / Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The photos that reveal Trump’s wallpaper—which were posted to Reddit before being deleted on Tuesday for some unknown reason—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, like recently bringing a food truck to Springfield, Ohio, where they asked people to buy their dog and cat meat, a reference to the racist meme that Trump helped spread, falsely claiming that immigrants from Haiti were eating domestic animals.

It’s not immediately clear where the photos of the Nelk Boys on Reddit may have originated since they don’t appear on the social media channels of the podcasters nor those of Trump or his immediate social circle, as far as Gizmodo can tell. Gizmodo only learned about this bizarre fact after reporter Karl Bode first pointed it out Tuesday with a post on Bluesky, but this wallpaper isn’t new, as we can see by parsing older photos and videos with Trump’s phone visible.

Eric Schmitt, a U.S. Senator from Missouri who’s running for re-election this year, posted a photo with Trump on his Facebook page October 5 where you can also see Trump’s wallpaper. Schmitt was traveling with Trump to Butler, Pennsylvania, that infamous rally where Elon Musk jumped up and down, exposing his stomach and generally looking like a real weirdo. Schmitt is rumored to be on Trump’s “short list” for Attorney General.

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri on a flight with Donald Trump to Butler, PA on October 5, 2024. Photo: Facebook / Eric Schmitt

If you zoom in on the phone at the table you can see Trump has that wallpaper of himself pointing at the camera. It’s much more difficult to see than the images going viral this week on social media, but it’s definitely the same wallpaper.

Photo: Facebook / Eric Schmitt

A video of Trump golfing in late 2023 clearly shows the former president’s phone with the bizarre wallpaper as well. Benny Johnson, a right-wing influencer exposed last month as having taken a lot of money for an political influence operation tied to the Russian government, posted the video of Trump’s golf cart to YouTube in Dec. 2023.

The image is pixelated when you zoom in, but once you’ve seen the photo in other places, it’s clearly the same one from 2019 that Trump has apparently been using as his wallpaper for some time now.

Donald Trump golfing in a video from late 2023 shared by Benny Johnson in December 2023. Screenshots: YouTube / Benny Johnson

Johnson even comments on Trump’s phone wallpaper in his video, and rather than seeing it as a sign of a very self-absorbed and sick mind, the 37-year-old influencer seems to love it.

“Did you see Donald Trump’s phone there?” Johnson asks in the video. “The background screen of Donald Trump’s phone is Donald Trump going like this. Donald Trump’s wallpaper is Donald Trump, staring down the barrel of the camera and pointing.”

“Bro! You love this guy more? He knows he’s the meme. And that’s where his power comes from,” Johnson continued.

The former president is out on the campaign trail holding his neo-fascist rallies, posing for photo-ops in disaster zones, and promising to send the military after his political opponents on Election Day and beyond. Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish his perceived enemies, according to a new tally by NPR.

And yet Trump is still seemingly neck-and-neck with Kamala Harris in the polls. With just two weeks left until Election Day on Nov. 5, Harris is ahead by just 1.7%, according to 538’s national polling average. And the margins are even tighter in battleground states that Harris needs to win in order to secure the White House. In Michigan, Harris is up just 0.1%, while she’s up just 0.4% in Wisconsin. And in Pennsylvania, Trump actually took the lead in recent days, according to 538’s polling average for the state, up 0.4%, if you can believe it. Whoever wins those three states will likely win the presidency.

Trump, the adjudicated rapist who’s been convicted of 34 felonies, somehow has a real shot at becoming president again. If that happens, Americans are clearly in for a lot of trouble. Because the narcissist-in-chief doesn’t care about anyone but himself, as evidenced by his iPhone wallpaper, among countless other facts. And he’s out to inflict as much pain as possible should he be given the reins of power again.