What’s the controversy surrounding a half-naked image of Trump, Biden on magazine?

Critical days are ahead for the United States.

Donald Trump has wrapped up an enthusiastic Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and Democrats are racing time as they consider the extraordinary possibility of President Joe Biden stepping aside for a new presidential nominee before their own convention.

Amid the turmoil, _New York m_agazine published its latest Health issue on Thursday, featuring a photoshopped picture of Trump and Biden on the cover page.

The image, which compares the two political rivals on medical scales, has sparked a flurry of criticism for being improper and immoral.

The controversial magazine cover

New York magazine’s new Health Issue shows President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in their underwear in a doctored image.

The photo, illustrated by Martin Schoeller, depicts the president and his predecessor standing side by side on sets of scales that suggest a medical exam.

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It’s based on source photographs of Trump by Seth Wenig and Biden by Mandel Ngan, as per the magazine.

According to the issue’s description, the issue features Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s interview on her sudden entrance into presidential politics.

“Jonathan Chait writes on how Democrats will lose more than an election if they stick with Biden, and Mark Jacobson reflects on ageing as questions about President Biden’s health consume the news. Other features spotlight what mammograms get wrong, the immunotherapy research is changing cancer treatment, and how the rich die.”

The magazine’s Instagram post featuring the controversial image garnered thousands of likes and comments.

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Criticism

After the magazine revealed the cover on social media on Wednesday, people expressed outrage and labelled it as immoral.

“What a disgusting decision to make this a cover. We can now point to the media’s contribution to making the US a joke to the world,” commented a user.

“I’d just like to note that if a publication photoshopped a woman’s head onto a body in underwear and posted it, then the comments would be different. This is such a weird thing to do to anyone,” wrote another user.

“This feels wildly disrespectful and inconceivably out of line,” another commenter said.

“Did you really need to make this the cover? It’s so unnecessary and objectifying. Bad form,” read another response.

Over on X, the former Twitter, the response was similarly negative.

Magazine’s response

Speaking about the cover, the magazine argued that it was a statement on the candidates’ ages and health subjects that the public is becoming more interested in.

“We had already been thinking about how to address the fact that this health issue would drop in the middle of the presidential campaign, when the presidential debate put the health and age of the candidates in the centre of the national conversation,” New York’s executive editor, Genevieve Smith, said of the cover in a press release.

The magazine issue includes a special package containing an analysis of the “existential crisis Democrats are facing as the nation questions President Biden’s fitness for office,” the press release said.

Responding to a comment, a New York magazine spokesperson said, “This cover is part of the magazine’s longstanding tradition of political cartoons. We hope our readers found it funny, and are ok that some didn’t.”

Health concerns

After he bungled the June 27 CNN presidential debate, Biden ignited a firestorm around his candidature, starting a debate over whether he is the best opponent of Trump in November.

On the other hand, Trump, who is known for his long speeches, lied repeatedly during the discussion and hesitated when asked if he would respect the election results.

Democrats at the highest levels have been making a critical push for Biden to rethink his election bid, with former President Barack Obama expressing concerns to allies and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi privately telling Biden the party could lose the ability to seize control of the House if he doesn’t step away from the 2024 race, according to The Associated Press.

Campaign officials said Biden was even more committed to staying in the race, even as the calls for him to go mounted.

Both Biden and Trump are the oldest major-party candidates that Americans have ever seen when casting their ballots, according to NPR.

Biden will be 82 on Inauguration Day if he wins the election. Trump would be 78 years old.

Additionally, voters’ perceptions of the candidates’ suitability for their positions have been influenced by their ages, despite the complex relationship between age and cognitive ability.

That was already the case before to the debate: according to an April Pew Research Centre study, only 15 per cent of Americans felt that Joe Biden had the necessary physical health to be president, and 21 per cent felt the same way about his mental fitness.

NPR cited the survey Trump performed better, with 36 per cent of respondents saying they were confident in his physical health and 38 per cent saying they were confident in his mental capacity.

A president must be at least 35 years old, among other requirements, as stated in Article 2 of the US Constitution, indicating that the Founding Fathers gave the issue of presidential age careful consideration centuries ago, as per the report.

Although there is a cap on the age at which one can accept the position, there has never been an upper age limit for presidents.

According to NPR, which cited a Pew study, about 80 per cent of American adults believe that federally elected officials, including the president, should have age restrictions.

Constitution scholars argue that the 18th-century American government’s founders would never have thought to include such a restriction and that there are significant obstacles to those laws altering anytime soon.

With inputs from agencies