--- title: The Story Behind TIME's Joe Biden Cover by Tim O'Brien description: Here's the story behind TIME's cover about the first year of Joe Biden's presidency. canonical: https://time.com/6140412/story-behind-joe-biden-cover-tim-obrien/ author: D.W. Pine article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-01-20T12:00:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:33.739Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Story Behind TIME's 'Year One' Joe Biden Cover og:description: A returned to a troubled Oval Office og:url: https://time.com/6140412/story-behind-joe-biden-cover-tim-obrien/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8f1eee775189c64/698a219f011682122e98175a/Biden.One_.Year_.Grid_.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3800 og:image:height: 2138 og:image:alt: Joe Biden One Year Grid Tim O'Brien og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind TIME's 'Year One' Joe Biden Cover twitter:description: A returned to a troubled Oval Office twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8f1eee775189c64/698a219f011682122e98175a/Biden.One_.Year_.Grid_.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Story Behind TIME's 'Year One' Joe Biden Cover > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=2eaf5ff8-117f-4dba-bf71-0cb1ec58eaf0&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Stories Behind Donald Trump's TIME Covers [Watch (HLS stream): The Stories Behind Donald Trump's TIME Covers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W8uZ13Pz.m3u8) (5:07)  _Published 2021-01-21. TIME's D.W. Pine looks back at the various covers featuring Donald Trump, from his first appearance in 1989 to the end of his presidency._  by [D.W. Pine](https://time.com/author/d-w-pine/)  ## D.W. Pine Pine is the Creative Director at TIME. Jan 20, 2022 12:00 PM UTC  Illustrations by Tim O'Brien for TIME  by [D.W. Pine](https://time.com/author/d-w-pine/)  ## D.W. Pine Pine is the Creative Director at TIME. Jan 20, 2022 12:00 PM UTC As President Joseph Biden closes in on his first year in office, the Jan. 31, 2022, TIME cover returns to a familiar setting—[a gloomy Oval Office](https://time.com/6140442/joe-biden-presidency-second-year/). Artist Tim O’Brien christened Biden’s administration with “Day One,” a [Feb. 1, 2021, cover depicting the cluttered mess](https://time.com/5932022/joe-biden-divided-america/) he was facing upon entering office. His latest, “Year One,” depicts the president facing a growing storm with [COVID-19 tests](https://time.com/6133357/at-home-covid-19-tests-essay/) stacked up in the corner and issues like inflation, [Russian President Vladimir Putin’s maneuvering](https://time.com/6140102/alexei-navalny-russia-profile/), domestic policy, and the prospect of the [return of Donald Trump](https://time.com/6133251/donald-trump-january-6-anniversary/) to the national stage, adding to the gloomy forecast. “This new cover shows Biden in a cleaned-up office, but the tasks remain, and the mounting issues gather like storm clouds,” says O’Brien, who has painted more TIME covers (36 and counting) than any artist in the past 50 years, including subjects ranging from the Catholic church to Osama Bin Laden. As TIME’s Molly Ball and Brian Bennett write in their cover story, “the pandemic he promised to bring to heel rages out of control. Inflation is at a four-decade high, canceling out rising wages. The border is a mess; violent crime continues to rise. His approval rating has sunk to the low 40s.” Adds O’Brien: “A year later, Biden sits at the resolute desk, with mounting tasks and threats and a persistent COVID pandemic all still lingering. The country needs him to rise to the moment before it _really_ starts raining.” The image of growing storms has appeared several times on TIME covers by O’Brien in the past five years. He created a series of four covers, the first such series in TIME’s 98-year history, featuring Trump inside the Oval Office as rainstorms gathered inside: “Nothing to See Here” (Feb. 27, 2017), “Stormy” (April 23, 2018), “In Deep” (Sept. 3, 2018) and “The Plague Election” (Aug. 17, 2020). The “Stormy” cover was named 2018 Cover of the Year by AdWeek and received a Gold medal from the Art Director’s Club.  Illustrations by Tim O'Brien for TIME Outside of his collaboration with TIME, O’Brien has created work which has appeared in publications all over the world, as well as several on U.S. postage stamps including the popular Hunger Games trilogy. Two of his TIME magazine covers—one with Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and the other with the “Grand Old Populists,” both published in 1996—reside in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. ## Transcript I happened been on their cover like 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all time record in the history of Time magazine. Donald Trump has always had a fascination with time. He first landed on the cover on January 16th, 1989, 28 years before his inauguration, since before his election. Trump has regularly campaigned to be named Time's Person of the Year using rallies and his Twitter feed to comment on Time's choices. They should have picked me for the Person of the Year, but they didn't know. They said. And perhaps most notably, fake time travelers were designed to hang in his golf course clubhouses. Time has a long history of featuring presidents on the cover, and Trump has been no exception. Eight of the top ten people to appear most often on Time's cover are U.S. presidents. Trump finished his term with 35 covers, the fourth most of any president behind Richard Nixon's 55 covers. Ronald Reagan with 46 and Bill Clinton with 40. Rounding out the top ten are George W Bush with 32. Barack Obama 31. Jimmy Carter 27. Jesus 22. And Hillary Clinton and George H.W. Bush tied at 21. We first introduced candidate Trump to Time's readers in August of 2015, when photographer Martin Schaller and Time editor at large Paul Moakley brought a live bald eagle to the Trump Tower in New York City for a portrait. This symbol of democracy was particularly animated during the photo and video session, even angrily nipping at the president's hand during the 2016 campaign. We produced seven covers featuring Trump and created an original visual language for this president with the artwork of artist Adele Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who worked as Time's international art director in the 1990s as a strong, simple, graphic style that immediately grabbed worldwide recognition with the meltdown cover, a reflection of his slumping campaign following the Republican National Convention. Two months later, in response to the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Rodriguez followed with an updated image with the headline Total Meltdown. Of course, TIME reports many different topics, and the visual approaches on the cover reinforces that variety. We have presented President Trump as a frenetic Twitter user, crumbling at the Washington Monument, a punching bag, a graphic wrecking ball, an angry character with his hair on fire, a cross between himself and Vladimir Putin, a king looking into a cover, a slingshot holding fighter, dueling with Nancy Pelosi, a happy president, whistling under an umbrella in the rain, and a man who has painted himself into a corner. We've also photographed Trump for multiple covers, including a White House tour for our May 22nd, 2017 cover and an Oval Office conversation in the summer of 2019 on Trump's plan to keep the White House. My favorite time cover of Trump is nothing to See Here from February 27, 2017. I believe the strongest time covers leave space for a variety of perspectives for this cover. If you're an opponent of President Trump, you look at the cover and you see all the chaos that this man has created. And if you're a supporter of the president, you look at it and say, even among all the chaos in Washington, look how resolute he is sitting behind that desk. That is a great place for a time cover to be. That image was created by longtime Time collaborator Tim O'Brien, who has painted more covers in the past 30 years than any other artist. It was the first of what would become a series of four paintings from O'Brien depicting Trump in a growing storm within the Oval Office. Our Trump covers have certainly not been without debate. An image we created of Trump staring down at a young immigrant girl for our Welcome to America cover sparked controversy. During the campaign, Trump frequently used the cover, proclaiming how Trump won as a selling point on the campaign trail. On numerous occasions, the president also tweeted out a fake time cover animation of how Trumpism outlasts Trump. A cover from October 22nd, 2018. But for most of the past year, the president's image on the cover took a backseat to front line workers. Racial injustice, protests and the rising COVID numbers. And even though the image of Trump wasn't physically shown on two recent covers, his influence was still present. While Trump's presidency has come to a close, it's certainly possible that we haven't seen the last of him. 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