A portrait of President Donald Trump at the Colorado Capitol will be taken down after Trump claimed the painting was “purposefully distorted.”
According to Fox 31, House Democrats have said in a statement that the portrait was removed at the request of Republicans.
“If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” the Democrats reportedly said.
In a Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump said he would prefer not to have a portrait hanging there at all rather than the one that is currently there, taking aim at the portrait’s artist Sarah Boardman, who painted it in 2019.
“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,” Trump said. “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.”
Trump then said he would rather not have a portrait at all and called the Colorado Governor Jared Polis “extremely weak on crime,” and that he should be “ashamed of himself.”
“In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one, but many people from Colorado have called and written to complain,” Trump said. “In fact, they are actually angry about it! I am speaking on their behalf to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on Crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself!”
Fox 31 further reported that former Colorado Senate President Kevin Grantham was behind the effort to get the portrait commissioned in the first place after they launched a GoFundMe to raise almost $11,000.
“We decide to raise the money, to together the campaign, did some videos and set up the GofundMe page and ‘viola’, thirty-some hours later, we had all the money raised,” Grantham told FOX31.
Grantham said he was “shocked” that Trump was not overly enthusiastic about the painting.
“Everybody seemed to be happy with our efforts. Color me shocked a little bit when I find out last night that opinion is not shared,” Grantham said. “I got a call from the governor last night, asking me kind of this same thing. ‘What’s your reaction on this?’ And I’m like honestly, if he doesn’t like it, and the governor is actually kind of the one who mentioned this to me to begin with, is maybe we can just take it down and look into getting a replacement.”
