Vice President-elect JD Vance attended the ringing of the opening bell ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange this week with President-elect Donald Trump and his family — wife Melania Trump and daughters Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump — in front of large posters of Trump as TIME magazine’s Person of the Year.
The NYSE welcomes President-elect Donald J. Trump, TIME 2024 Person of the Year, in ringing the Opening Bell!@realDonaldTrump | @TIME | #NYSE pic.twitter.com/k0OsYpeID7
— NYSE
(@NYSE) December 12, 2024
Many Americans who did not vote for Trump are voicing their disdain over the honor, including former CIA Director and Ret. U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden, who shared an image of Adolph Hitler on the 1938 cover of TIME next to Trump’s TIME cover and captioned it: “Enough said.”
Enough said. https://t.co/qpSZUDGwRw
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) December 12, 2024
Vance, who also attended the Army-Navy football game with Trump on Saturday, replied to Hayden: “Barack Obama was also Time’s person of the year. So was Bill Clinton. One of President Trump’s great contributions to American society is revealing that many of our respected career bureaucrats are, in fact, fools.”
Note: Trump was named Person of the Year by TIME after he won the 2016 president election, too. And when Joe Biden won in 2020, he and his VP Kamala Harris were featured together on the Person of the Year cover. The magazine has said that the designation is not an endorsement, but a recognition of those with the most influence.
Last year, mega pop star Taylor Swift was named 2023 Person of the Year; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won the honor in 2022 months after Russia initiated its invasion; and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk won the honor in 2021 (before he bought Twitter).