President-elect Donald Trump is gaining further recognition from the establishment press for mounting arguably the greatest political comeback in American history.
Time Magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2024 after he convincingly won the presidential election in November against Vice President Kamala Harris, overcoming multiple assassination attempts and criminal proceedings in the process.
“This is someone who made an historic comeback, who reshaped the American presidency and who’s reordering American politics,” Time editor Sam Jacobs said on NBC’s Today show.
The magazine revealed Thursday its cover of Trump looking out into the distance with a contemplative look on his face in front of a silver background. Time interviewed Trump at his Mar-a-Lago compound and conducted a photoshoot of the once-and-future president for its signature annual issue.
“I called it 72 Days of Fury,” Trump said of his political resurrection. “We hit the nerve of the country. The country was angry.”
This isn’t Trump’s first time being named the year’s most influential person by the editors of the storied American magazine: He appeared on Time’s cover as Person of the Year in 2016, after his shocking takeover of the Republican party and defeat of Hillary Clinton in the general election.
This time around, Trump decisively defeated Harris, winning all the swing states and the popular vote, the first time a Republican has done so in two decades. Riding off his coattails, Republicans regained control of the Senate and maintained an extremely narrow House majority to enact Trump’s expansive policy agenda.
Running on the economy and curtailing illegal immigration, Trump successfully attacked Harris for a range of progressive policy positions she took four years ago and tied her to the Biden administration’s failure to tame inflation or get the border under control.
Trump ended his first term in January 2021 having been impeached and universally condemned for the role he played in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, when a mob of his supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 election results based on false claims Trump and his surrogates peddled for months with little to show for it.
The following year, Trump announced he was running for president again after a worse-than-expected GOP midterm performance, in part because Trump selected poor candidates in several crucial Senate races.
Trump faced Republican primary campaigns from Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and a few other candidates, none of whom ended up seriously challenging Trump as the leader of the GOP.
During the primary, Trump’s criminal proceedings began in four separate cases brought by three prosecutors, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg (D), special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis (D).
Smith brought cases against Trump in Florida over his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and in D.C. for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. As the FBI was gathering information for the classified documents case, it conducted an unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, a move that further entrenched Trump’s disdain for intelligence agencies.
Bragg successfully prosecuted Trump on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records in connections with reimbursements he sent to attorney Michael Cohen for paying off porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
But, Trump gained several decisive victories that prevented his other cases from making it trial before the election. Willis’s prosecution imploded over a romantic relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade that dominated headlines earlier this year.
The proceedings in Smith’s D.C. case were delayed significantly by Trump’s presidential immunity challenge, resulting in a Supreme Court ruling giving the president criminal immunity for official acts. Soon after, a Trump-appointed judge in Florida threw out Smith’s classified document case, determining that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed.
With Trump winning the election, Smith dropped the D.C. case and his appeal of the Florida ruling. His sentencing in New York appears to be indefinitely postponed and the Georgia proceedings still have yet to get off the ground.
If that weren’t enough, Trump survived two attempts on his life, the first of which came inches away from potentially killing him. In July, Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa, when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight bullets into the crowd from a nearby rooftop.
Miraculously, Trump turned his head at the last second, causing a bullet from Crooks to graze his right ear as shots flew into the crowd of spectators. With blood pouring down his face, Trump got up off the ground, pumped his fist, and urged supporters to “fight!” in a moment that instantly came to define Trump’s political career.
Two months later, a man attempted to shoot Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, but failed when a Secret Service agent spotted him in the bushes and fired his way. The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, plead not guilty to the charges and is set to go to trial early next year.
As he prepares for another term, Trump remains the most widely discussed figure in American life and dominates media coverage in a way few people ever have. For now, the Republican Senate will be tasked with confirming the incoming president’s cabinet nominees, some of whom have been embroiled in controversy.