Biden lays out COVID-19 response priorities for first 100 days
President-elect formally announces more Cabinet picks in Delaware; Peter Doocy reports
Time magazine announced late Thursday that it named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris its Person of the Year in a profile that was fiercely critical of President Trump.
Charlotte Alter, the author of the piece, wrote that Biden’s pledge “to ‘restore the soul of the nation’ felt like antiquated hokum at a moment when Hurricane Trump was tearing through America, ripping through institutions, chewing up norms and spitting them out.”
She interviewed Biden and praised his approach to the campaign. She wrote that to Biden “it wasn’t about fighting Trump with righteous vengeance, or probing any deeper rot that might have contributed to his ascent. Biden believed most voters simply wanted reconciliation after four years of combat, that they craved decency, dignity, experience and competence.”
Last year, it was teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg who received the magazine's honor. Time winners in 2018 included slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi; the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where five people were shot to death; Philippine journalist Maria Ressa; and two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.
The decision for Time to announce Biden and Harris for its top honor will likely rankle Trump supporters who will likely see the move as the latest example of how mainstream media will embrace the Biden administration for the next four years.
Trump’s detractors echoed much of what Alter argued in her article and see Biden and Harris as a return to normalcy and stability in D.C., which is precisely what many Trump supporters dread.
Biden and Harris did not immediately respond to the magazine’s announcement on social media, and have been working to fill seats in their administration.
Trump, in the meantime, is challenging the election result after alleging widespread voter fraud.
Alter also praised Harris for providing the Biden ticket with something “a 78-year-old white man could never provide: generational change, a fresh perspective, and an embodiment of America’s diversity.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
More from Politics
