The New Yorker’s Sept. 29 issue features a cover illustration in which President Donald Trump’s hand grips a red television-style remote. Dominating the top is a bold POWER button, beneath which runs a column of ominous commands: Mute. Pause. Stop. Stifle. Silence. Shun. Sack. Banish. Oust. Muzzle. Axe. Dismiss. Torment. A larger red Deport button sits at the bottom.
Artist Barry Blitt created the image, and Françoise Mouly, the magazine’s art editor, said the piece aims to capture Trump’s confrontations with the media, his administration’s cutbacks to federal programs, and what the artist described as a new era of political vengeance tied to executive power. Blitt said, “When voting for president, I, of course, want someone who will not only run the country but also help narrow down our media diet.” Mouly wrote that Blitt’s cover “attempted to capture, in one image, Donald Trump’s unprecedented series of attacks on the media, destruction of federal programs, and abuses of executive power that have ushered in a new era of political vengeance.”
The image arrived amid a broader conversation about Trump-era media battles and the administration’s approach to information and dissent. The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, appeared as a guest on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show to discuss the artwork. Colbert described the image as a “tiny hand in a big suit holding a TV remote.” Remnick initially deadpanned, then acknowledged that the illustration “captures in one image Trump’s peculiar obsession with the media, particularly television.” He added, “It’s funny. Funny, haha, but it’s also very real,” as Colbert pressed on the administration’s tensions with media figures. The interview touched on broader media dynamics in the current political climate, including footballing culture wars and press coverage surrounding remarks about cable-news figures.
The cover’s release reflects how culture and entertainment outlets continue to weigh in on politics, using satire to illuminate power dynamics and media accountability. Barry Blitt has long been known for his incisive political caricature, and this piece fits within The New Yorker’s tradition of visual commentary on major national events. By pairing the caricature with explicit references to media consumption and control, the publication adds another layer to the ongoing public conversation about press freedom, information access, and the responsibilities of national leadership in a media-saturated era.
As readers digest the image and its accompanying discussion, critics and commentators may consider how satire shapes perception of political power. By portraying a commanding, almost omnipresent “remote” through which the president can influence media narratives, the artwork invites reflection on how audiences interpret coverage and where lines between leadership, media influence, and accountability should lie. In the landscape of 21st-century culture and entertainment, such covers underscore the role of art in documenting and interrogating the tensions of a polarized era, while inviting new conversations about the boundaries of political satire and the responsibilities of a free press.