Last August, as Person of the Year runner-up Donald Trump was establishing himself as a real contender, the candidate agreed to pose with a bald eagle for a TIME cover story. The idea came from Martin Schoeller, the award-winning portrait photographer and frequent TIME contributor who shot the cover.
The eagle’s name, for the record, is Uncle Sam, and he’s 27 years old.
.

GIF by Mia Tramz for TIME
More Must-Read Stories From TIME
- How to Help Victims of the Texas School Shooting
- TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2022
- What the Buffalo Tragedy Has to Do With the Effort to Overturn Roe
- Column: The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn't Have to Be That Way
- N.Y. Will Soon Require Businesses to Post Salaries in Job Listings. Here's What Happened When Colorado Did It
- The 46 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2022
- ‘We Are in a Moment of Reckoning.’ Amanda Nguyen on Taking the Fight for Sexual Violence Survivors to the U.N.
Read More From TIME