Time magazine has named president-elect Donald Trump its Person of The Year.
Time magazine has named president-elect Donald Trump its Person of The Year.
Just one year after lashing out at Time for picking German chancellor Angela Merkel over him, Trump was finally given the honor he so clearly coveted. The president-elect’s win marks the 90th time the magazine has identified a person who has had the greatest impact—positive or negative—on the world that year.
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For 2016, Trump beat out Hilary Clinton, hackers, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the researchers who pioneered CRISPR, and Beyoncé. He was chosen for the “revolution” he’s stirred in the US. As Time explains:
It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.
On the Today Show, Trump described the win as a “tremendous honor” that “means a lot.” “It’s a very important magazine,” he said. “I’ve been lucky enough to be on the cover many times.”
The Time cover features Trump’s face alongside the words, “president elect of the divided states of America.” When asked about the text, Trump said, “I didn’t divide them,” adding that he would “put it back together.” Just how well, or terribly, he does that may determine whether he’s on Time’s shortlist again next year.
