How Trump Uses the Power and Imagery of His Presidency

Donald Trump is capitalizing on his unusual status as both a former president and a candidate to twist the race in his favor in ways big and small.

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Former President Donald J. Trump leaves a campaign rally while surrounded by Secret Service agents in Durham, N.H., in December.

Only five days after Donald J. Trump left office, one of his aides emailed a lawyer to request approval of a formal-looking seal for use on statements from the office of the 45th president.

Margo Martin, one of his closest personal aides, told the lawyer, Scott Gast, that consultants had designed a subtly-modified seal for Mr. Trump. “They said they changed a few things to avoid trademark issues,” she wrote, asking Mr. Gast if the design was acceptable.

The eventual image that Mr. Trump’s team used — a recognizable eagle from the Great Seal of the United States, placed in a circle — was evocative of the presidential seal that identified Mr. Trump with the job he had just left. And while he is hardly the first former White House occupant to affix an eagle to his website, the early conversations about presidential imagery revealed what has turned out to be an important obsession of Mr. Trump’s: being seen as much as a future president as a former one.

At left, the Great Seal of the United States. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have used a version of the Great Seal out of office on their websites. In the middle, the seal that the Trump team created. At right, the presidential seal.

Mr. Trump vacated the White House before noon on Jan. 20, 2021, as required by the Constitution. But from the moment he arrived home to Mar-a-Lago, his members-only club in Florida, he has grabbed at every opportunity to inhabit the role of an incumbent president, including by putting the typical trappings of a post-presidency to use in trying to reclaim the office.

At a minimum, that approach may have helped to soothe Mr. Trump’s bruised ego. But it has indisputably become a crucial factor in his effort to return to power.

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