Donald Trump named Time’s Person of the Year

Donald Trump has described being named Time’s Person of the Year as ‘a great honour’, after being overlooked last year.

Donald Trump has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year.

Donald Trump has described being named Person of the Year by Time magazine as “a great honour”.

“It means a lot,” the US president-elect said in a telephone interview on NBC’s Today show.

The magazine’s managing editor, Nancy Gibbs, said on the program that defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was the No. 2 finalist out of a shortlist of 11. Ms Gibbs said the choice of Trump this year was “straightforward” given that Trump had upended politics-as-usual during the course of his extraordinary race for the White House.

He joins Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Richard Nixon and more popular leaders such as Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth on the elite list of Time people.

Last year Trump bemoaned Time’s pick of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying they picked the “person who is ruining Germany”.

I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2015

Time wrote: “This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer.”

Meanwhile, in the NBC interview Trump doubled down on his scorn for popular TV sketch show Saturday Night Live, and especially Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him, saying “the skits are terrible”.

Trump, who hosted Saturday Night Live in November 2015 when he was running for the Republican president, has vented his anger on Twitter in recent weeks, calling the NBC show “totally unwatchable” and a “hit-job”.

Donald Trump is not finding Alec Baldwin's impression of him funny.

Trump was asked whether he had considered no longer watching it, given his complaints.

“I hosted SNL when it was a good show, but it’s not a good show anymore,” Trump responded. “First of all, nothing to do with me, there’s nothing funny about it. The skits are terrible.”

The Republican businessman said Baldwin’s depiction of him was “really mean- spirited and not very good”.

“I do like him and I like him as an actor, but I don’t think his imitation of me gets me at all,” the Republican added.

Baldwin, who has impersonated Trump as unprepared for office or tweeting during security briefings, tweeted back to Trump last week, “Release your tax returns and I’ll stop. Ha.”

Saturday Night Live also parodied Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 presidential campaign. The show has lampooned presidents and presidential candidates from both parties since it first aired 41 years ago. Saturday Night Live has seen a rise in audiences since Baldwin joined the show in October to impersonate Trump.

But Trump countered on Wednesday, “Frankly, the way the show is going now, if you look at the kind of work they’re doing, who knows how long that show’s going to be on. It’s a terrible show.”

AP/Reuters