Time’s annual announcement of their “Person of the Year” is a rare newsstand event and a closely guarded secret.
The magazine got scooped on their most famous feature by Politico, however, where Donald Trump biographer and political correspondent Meredith McGraw shared that the president-elect would win the honor for a second time.
McGraw’s bean-spilling coup came just a day before Time was set to share the news themselves. The outlet shared a tersely worded statement with Politico about the news, saying it “does not comment on its annual choice for Person of the Year prior to publication” and added that “this year’s choice will be announced tomorrow morning, Dec. 12, on Time.com.”
Trump first claimed the once mega-selling magazine’s marquee designation in 2016. He’s been a runner-up for the honor in many of the years since. In 2017, when the cover went to “The Silence Breakers” during the #MeToo movement, Trump claimed that he had turned down the magazine’s offer to hold the end-of-year cover in back-to-back years.
“Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named ‘Man (Person) of the Year,’ like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot,” he shared on Twitter (now X). “I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”
Since Trump’s last “Person of the Year” win, the designation has been given to many targets and associates of the president-elect like his close confidant Elon Musk, the Biden-Harris administration, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Taylor Swift.