From Karoline Leavitt to JD Vance: These are the reactions to Vanity Fair’s photos of Trump’s White House crew

The White House woke up on Tuesday morning to see the result of months of interviews top officials in Trump’s second administration had done with Vanity Fair over the past year. The candid revelations of Susie Wiles, the normally out-of-the-scenes chief of staff, caught most of the attention and sent the White House into crisis mode.

However, along with the exposé of the most prominent members of Trump’s inner circle, Vanity Fair included a number of extremely close-up photos of their faces. So close-up that Stephen Colbert quipped on his The Late Show: “Evidently they threw on a camera lens that they borrowed from the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Several of the reactions to the photos the magazine posted on its Instagram page were just as much of a stitch as the jokes they sparked across the rest of late night TV.

Vanity Fair’s photos of White House top officials: Viewer discretion advised

There were a range of comments about the photos taken by award winning photographer Christopher Anderson that Vanity Fair selected to display, particularly of Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Vice President JD Vance. Some were critical, saying that he intentionally made them look bad but there were many others that used two words: “Jump scare.”

“Holy jump scare! I literally just woke up. So rude for that!” posted one user. Being shocked awake by the photos was another common reaction to the close-up photos. “Well thanks I’m wide awake now.”

Many others like comedian Kelsey Darragh joked that there should be some kind of “viewer discretion advised” caption added. “Jesus Christ a warning next time please.”

“I need a trigger warning on such an aggressive picture. I just scrolled and screamed,” noted another. “How has IG not blurred this with a sensitive content warning yet.”

Photographer Christopher Anderson: “I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics”

The members of the White House whose pictures got the biggest online reaction haven’t commented on how they were portrayed, but they most likely weren’t expecting to be put in a glowing light by the comments Vance made when they were all brought together for the shoot.

Global Editorial Director Mark Guiducci shared that when Anderson started taking pictures the vice president quipped: “Is this the part where you say we’re all evil?” Vanity Fair quoted him as also saying: “I’ll give you $100 for every person you make look really s---ty compared to me. And $1,000 if it’s Marco.”

According to the person who took the photos, there was no malice or bias in how he portrayed his subjects. Anderson told The Independent: “Very close-up portraiture has been a fixture in a lot of my work over the years. Particularly, political portraits that I’ve done over the years. I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics.”

“I know there’s a lot to be made with, ‘Oh, he intentionally is trying to make people look bad’ and that kind of thing – that’s not the case. If you look at my photograph work, I’ve done a lot of close-ups in the same style with people of all political stripes,” he added.

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