--- title: Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle description: The Person of the Year runner-up encounters the American symbol canonical: https://time.com/4141783/time-person-of-the-year-runner-up-donald-trump-eagle-gif/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-09T11:37:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:46.798Z og:title: Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle og:description: The Person of the Year runner-up encounters the American symbol og:url: https://time.com/4141783/time-person-of-the-year-runner-up-donald-trump-eagle-gif/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde683896348244fe/698874800b72e372186e7309/donald-trump-bald-eagle-attack.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Donald Trump Eagle Attack og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle twitter:description: The Person of the Year runner-up encounters the American symbol twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde683896348244fe/698874800b72e372186e7309/donald-trump-bald-eagle-attack.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Dec 9, 2015 11:37 AM UTC  by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Dec 9, 2015 11:37 AM UTC Last August, as [Person of the Year runner-up](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-donald-trump/) Donald Trump was establishing himself as a real contender, the candidate agreed to pose with a bald eagle for a TIME [cover story](http://time.com/trump/). The idea came from Martin Schoeller, the award-winning portrait photographer and frequent TIME contributor who [shot the cover](http://time.com/4003904/donald-trump-bald-eagle/). The eagle’s name, for the record, is Uncle Sam, and he’s 27 years old. .  GIF by Mia Tramz for TIME ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4141783/time-person-of-the-year-runner-up-donald-trump-eagle-gif/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4141783/time-person-of-the-year-runner-up-donald-trump-eagle-gif/"},"headline":"Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle","datePublished":"2015-12-09T11:37:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:46:46.798Z","description":"The Person of the Year runner-up encounters the American symbol","url":"https://time.com/4141783/time-person-of-the-year-runner-up-donald-trump-eagle-gif/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Person of the Year topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde683896348244fe/698874800b72e372186e7309/donald-trump-bald-eagle-attack.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde683896348244fe/698874800b72e372186e7309/donald-trump-bald-eagle-attack.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump Eagle Attack","caption":"Donald Trump Eagle Attack","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4141783/time-person-of-the-year-runner-up-donald-trump-eagle-gif/","name":"Watch Donald Trump Dodge a Bald Eagle"}}]}] ```