Former CNN host Don Lemon joined countless critics in slamming Time magazine for making President-elect Donald Trump 2024’s “Person of the Year,” arguing Thursday on “The Don Lemon Show” that they should’ve picked someone “who stands for democracy.”
“Just because you are elected president of the United States does not mean that you should be ‘Person of the Year,’” he said. “Time magazine, what are you doing? Let me ask you … what would you say to those women who I guess still read Time magazine?”
“You have someone on the cover of your magazine who is an adjudicated assaulter,” Lemon continued. Trump was found liable in 2023 by a New York City jury for sexually abusing author E. Jean Carroll and for defaming her in his statements after Carroll went public in 2019 with claims that Trump raped her in the 1990s.
“You have someone who inspired an insurrection,” Lemon said in reference to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. “We have someone who, without a doubt, the evidence is there, tried to overturn a free and fair election.”
“And you name them ‘Person of the Year,’” he added.
Trump rang the opening bell Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange. Spencer Platt via Getty Images
Time’s “Person of the Year” title is notably not an endorsement, as previous recipients include dictators Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, but an acknowledgment of how influential the person is. Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs explained as much on television Thursday amid outcries on social media.
“Is this a joke?” Lemon nonetheless asked on his show. “Did we get something wrong? Did someone scam us? Are we sure about this, producers? There is a convicted felon on the cover of Time magazine as the ‘Person of the Year.’ Maybe we’re being scammed.”
Trump was convicted earlier this year on 34 charges of falsifying business documents ahead of the 2016 presidential election to cover up his alleged sexual relations with a porn star. Trump had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His Nov. 26 sentencing hearing was canceled after the election last month.
Jacobs said Thursday on “Morning Joe” that the choice to name Trump “Person of the Year” was “obvious,” precisely because of these historic moments — including the assassination attempt against Trump in July — and posited that “we are living in the Age of Trump.”
“For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a-generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world, Donald Trump is Time’s 2024 Person of the Year,” he wrote in an article Thursday.
Trump slammed Time as passé in 2013 but lauded it after he first received the title in 2016.
