Donald Trump stepped off Air Force One with a darker head of hair than Washington has seen in years.
The president, 79, arrived Friday evening at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey for a weekend getaway sporting an almost brunette shade that replaced his signature sweeping golden-blond locks. Photographs from the arrival showed the new tone clearly, and the images quickly circulated online.
Journalist Yashar Ali reacted to the photos on social media with a blunt post: “The hair????”
Hemant Mehta, the Jeopardy champion, fired back with a pun that caught traction among observers. “If everyone keeps mocking this, there will be hell toupée,” he wrote.
Author Anne Lamott offered a more charitable take on the same platform. “I love it. So youthful. Very Pierce Brosnan,” she remarked.
One social media user took a seasonal angle on the transformation, musing that “Summer’s almost over,” and so it is “a natural time to switch from bottle blonde to brunette.”
The president’s hair has been a fixation of public speculation for decades, predating his political career. Rumors have long circulated that he wore a wig or had undergone a scalp reduction procedure — the latter referenced in divorce proceedings from his late first wife, Ivana Trump. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and allowed the host to ruffle his hair in an attempt to prove its authenticity, a moment that drew massive attention given his well-known germaphobia.
Trump has rarely made significant changes to his trademark look, though this is not the first time he has experimented. Back in 2019, he visited a church service in Virginia with a slicked-back style somewhat resembling California Governor Gavin Newsom’s polished appearance. That look vanished within hours, and he was photographed later the same day with his familiar comb-over restored.
By Saturday, the president had obscured whatever remained of Friday’s surprise under a red cap bearing the phrase “Trump was right about everything.” He golfed that day with Fox News anchor Bret Baier and several others, leaving photographers unable to determine whether the darker shade was still present or already abandoned.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the color change was intentional, temporary, or the result of lighting conditions.
The Bedminster arrival marked one of the few documented instances of Trump voluntarily altering his most recognizable physical feature, a silhouette that has defined his public image across decades in New York real estate, reality television, and national politics. Whether the brunette phase outlasts the weekend remains to be seen, and observers noted that Friday’s photographs could yet prove as fleeting as the 2019 Virginia experiment.
Trump is scheduled to return to Washington and resume his presidential duties following the New Jersey stay.