President Trump said Friday that he turned down being named Time’s “Person of the Year” after the magazine only told him he “probably” would be selected.
The magazine did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment, but it did tweet a short statement saying it “does not comment on our choice until publication.”
Trump was previously named Time’s 2016 “Person of the Year” last December.
“It’s a great honor. It means a lot,” Trump said at the time. “To be on the cover of Time magazine as the person of the year is a tremendous honor.”
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In last year’s edition, Time managing editor Nancy Gibbs explained that regardless of how they feel about Trump, everyone had an opinion on the then-president-elect.
“For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class,” she said.
“For those who see it for the worse, the destruction extends to cherished norms of civility and discourse, a politics poisoned by vile streams of racism, sexism, nativism.”
Trump has kept close tabs on the magazine’s coverage of him in the past.
“I think I was on the cover of Time magazine twice in my life and like six times in the last number of months,” he said in July 2016.
“So you tell me which is more important, real estate or politics, OK? I have six for politics and I have two for real estate or whatever they put me on for.”
The Washington Post reported in June that Time had asked the Trump Organization to remove several fake covers featuring the president in his days as host of “The Apprentice” that were hanging in his golf clubs.
A former Time editor used those fake magazines to troll Trump after his tweet:
Trump’s tweet Friday afternoon follows an online readers’ poll that shows Trump being outperformed by singer Taylor Swift and San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz for this year’s honor.