No, the Time cover where Donald Trump appears to have devil horns is not real

On April 30, TIME published a series of interviews with Donald Trump focusing on what his plan would be if he were to win the 2024 presidential election. 

Shortly after the release of the cover story, titled “If He Wins,” an image of the cover began circulating online that made the “M” in the TIME lettering appear like red devil horns on Trump’s head. 

One post claims that TIME “purposefully used the letter M as devil horns on Trump’s head.” Trump also posted the cover before deleting and reposting a different version, leaving many people online questioning if the cover is real. 

THE QUESTION

Is the TIME cover of Donald Trump with devil horns real?

THE SOURCES

• TIME’s website and social media pages

• VERIFY visual analysis

THE ANSWER

No, the TIME cover of Donald Trump with devil horns is not real. 

WHAT WE FOUND

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The TIME cover of Donald Trump with the appearance of devil horns is not real. The image was manipulated to make Trump’s image larger and moved him so that the top of the “M” in TIME appears to look like devil horns on top of his head.

TIME posted its May 27th cover on its website and social media pages at 7:03 a.m. ET on April 30. Two hours later, Donald Trump’s Truth Social account posted the modified version. Trump later deleted the manipulated cover and shared the authentic one. 

On the real cover, the letter “M” is much more visible and not directly aligned with Trump’s head. In the image that creates the appearance of devil horns, the photo of Trump takes up more of the cover and his head overlaps with the letter “M.”

TIME author Eric Cortellessa, who interviewed Trump for the cover story, and the official Republican Twitter account also posted the real TIME cover.

The source of the fake cover is unclear. VERIFY reached out to TIME for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication. 

TIME does have a history of previous covers that gave the appearance of devil horns on top of people’s heads. A similar discussion occurred with Trump’s official 2016 TIME cover. It has also happened with Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Pope Francis and even Jesus. In an article discussing these covers, TIME said “Any resemblance to cats, bats or devil horns is entirely coincidental.”