Donald Trump has called for a portrait of him to be removed as it is “truly the worst”.

The US president claimed the portrait by British artist Sarah Boardman, which is currently hanging in Colorado’s State Capitol, was “purposefully distorted”.

Posting on his social media platform Truth Social, he said: “Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before.”

He said a portrait by the same artist of former US president Barack Obama was “wonderful” but “the one on me is truly the worst”.

Referring to the artist, whose collection of official portraits also includes one of former president George W. Bush, Mr Trump said “she must have lost her talent as she got older”.

He then added: “In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one.”

Mr Trump’s portrait by Boardman has been hanging in the State Capitol since 2019. It is unclear what sparked Mr Trump’s complaint on Sunday night.

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The president, who started his second stint in the White House when he was sworn in on 20 January, appealed to the “Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis” to take it down.

The 78-year-old said he was speaking on behalf of “many people from Colorado” who were “angry” about the picture and wanted it removed.

The president ended his post saying: “Jared should be ashamed of himself!”

When the portrait was unveiled in 2019, Boardman posted pictures online and said it was a “great day”.

She wrote: “Please remain respectful – this is about portraiture, not politics.”

The artist’s website states: “Sarah believes that the ultimate challenge is to capture the ‘personality, character and soul’ of an individual in a two-dimensional format.

“She uses a combination of realism and painterly aspects designed to draw the viewer into piece.”

A high-profile US delegation will visit Greenland this week as President Donald Trump continues to threaten to annexe the strategic Danish territory. 

Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, will lead the delegation that includes White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright. Mr Waltz and Mr Wright plan to visit the Pituffik space base, the US military base in Greenland.

The team will also watch a national dogsled race and visit historical sites.

Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the White House national security council, said the US team is “confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self-determination and advances economic cooperation”.

“This is a visit to learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people and to attend a dogsled race the United States is proud to sponsor, plain and simple,” Mr Hughes added.

Mr Trump has made the US annexation of Greenland a major talking point since taking office on 20 January.

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Greenland’s strategic location and rich mineral resources would benefit the US. It also lies along the shortest route from Europe to North America, and is vital for the US ballistic missile warning system.

The governments of both Greenland and Denmark have voiced opposition to such a move.

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said in a written statement reacting to news of the visit that “this is something we take seriously”.

She said Denmark wants to cooperate with the US, but it should be cooperation based on “the fundamental rules of sovereignty”.

Donald Trump has not been president for a hundred days – he will pass that marker at the end of April. Already the assessments are in: this is the most disruptive and transformative start ever to a presidential term.

The United States government is being turned inside out by Elon Musk.

The New York Times reports that Trump’s “expansive interpretation of presidential power” is an attempt “to consolidate power over courts, congress and more”.

In other words, to defang the legislature and the judiciary, the two other, supposedly independent, branches of government established to act as checks and balances to presidential autarchy.

On the international stage, the White House has, in practice, given the green light to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to up their assaults on Ukraine and Gaza, while cold shouldering NATO allies.

These are big and controversial changes for which Trump claims a mandate after winning both the electoral college and the popular vote in last year’s election.

His dramatic moves might be expected to stimulate as much passion among politicians as they are in the general public.

Yet – perhaps because Trump is judged to be so powerful at this stage – his elected opponents at home and abroad are struggling to organise effectively against him.

A two-party fight

American politics is strictly a two-party fight. There are no significant third forces.

Politicians are either Republican or Democrat.

Outside election years when both parties have presidential nominees, there is no equivalent to a British leader of the opposition, fighting the president blow by blow.

What opposition there is to an incumbent president is led from the US Congress.

Currently the Democrats are in an exceptionally weak position because they are in the minority in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

They are routinely outvoted by the Republicans.

This month, to the disgust of many Democrats, their party leadership in the Senate passed up on a rare chance to oppose the Trump administration.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and eight other Democratic senators sided with the Republicans to allow Trump’s Budget Resolution to pass.

Democrats, including Schumer, denounced the resolution because it contained massive cuts to government programmes such as housing, social security and healthcare.

But Schumer justified his last-minute change of heart because the federal government would have shut down unless the bill passed.

“A shutdown would shut down all government agencies, and it would solely be up to Trump and DOGE (department of government efficiency) and Musk what to open again, because they could determine what was essential,” he explained.

“So their goal of decimating the whole federal government, of cutting agency after agency after agency, would occur under a shutdown.”

Democrats in both Houses were furious. Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crocket said Schumer is “absolutely wrong”.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut argued that the Democrats had aided Trump and Musk’s plan to destroy government so they can hand control over to their “billionaire friends”.

Jon Stewart, the star host of the Daily Show, said simply of Schumer “you are a disgrace”.

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TV comedians like Stewart and his former partners Stephen Colbert and John Oliver have become some of the most outspoken public critics of Trump.

They viciously mock the Democratic establishment, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, for repeatedly insisting that the MAGA “fever will break”.

Meanwhile, Schumer protests that it will not be possible to do sensible deals in Congress until Trump’s popularity rating drops to 40%.

It could be a long wait. At the moment the president stands at around 48% approval while the Democrats are at a pitiful 27%.

This is not a basis from which they can confidently expect to harvest in 2026, the backlash against the president’s party which often occurs in mid-term elections.

There is little coherence as senior Democrats mount their own freelance campaigns.

Two prominent radicals from blue states, Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are outspoken about the violations of the Constitution which they believe the administration is perpetrating.

Together they are embarking on a nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. They are joined in anger by the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, who denounces “villainous cruelty by a handful of idiots”.

Sanders, 83, ran for the Democrat nomination in the past.

Both Ocasio-Cortez and Pritzker have been talked about as possible future runners.

Other Democrats worry that their values are too leftish and woke to win back the extra votes their party needs.

This seems to be the view shared by other potential candidates for the 2028 nomination.

Some are keeping a low profile. Pete Buttigieg has declined to run for the Senate and Kamala Harris says she will not announce any plans until the autumn.

Two governors are emerging as early hopefuls: Gavin Newsom in California and Harris’ former running mate, Tim Walz, in Minnesota.

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Newsom spotted Trump’s dominance on social media and in the manosphere of podcasting.

Newsom has adopted an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” strategy and set up his own podcast series.

His guest list is raising eyebrows for including Trump’s outrider Steve Bannon and other prominent MAGA figures.

When he finally got his invitation, centrist dad Walz wanted to know why Newsom is promoting “bad guys”.

So the Democrats in the US are arguing with each other and still looking for a way to take on Trump beyond hoping that his popularity will drop before he has terminally destroyed the democratic system.

Political leaders across the spectrum in Europe are privately aghast at what looks like the end of international politics as they have known it.

But they do not want to provoke Trump’s vindictive wrath by pointing out publicly that he is destroying America’s role as the lynchpin of the Western alliance.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor in waiting, Friedrich Merz, have one key asset: Trump is overwhelmingly unpopular in their countries.

This allows them to adopt a two-faced strategy – smilingly trying to salvage whatever they can from their existing links, while preparing to defend their countries with America as an unreliable ally and seemingly as an economic foe.

No one has a plan to take on Trump directly.

The best they have come up with is to hope he goes too far and destroys himself.

In so many ways that is not a safe bet. Trump’s first hundred days may yet be the least extraordinary of his term.