Trump will be honored as Time’s Person of the Year and ring the New York Stock Exchange bell
NEW YORK– About six months ago, Donald Trump sat in a lower Manhattan courtroom listening to a jury vote to make him the first former president convicted of a crime.
He will call on Thursday opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange just steps from that courthouse and being recognized by Time Magazine as Person of the Year.
The accolades for the businessman-turned-politician represent the latest chapter in his love-hate relationship with New York. They are also a measure of Trump’s remarkable comeback from an exiled former president who refused to accept his election loss four years ago to a newly elected president who decisively won the White House in November.
It is expected that it will be Trump’s turn Wall Street to mark the ceremonial start of the trading day, according to four people with knowledge of his plans. He will also be named Time’s 2024 Person of the Year on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the selection. The people who confirmed the NYSE and Time Award appearance were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Trump was also Time’s Person of the Year in 2016, when he was first elected to the White House. He was listed as one finalist for this year’s award alongside such notables as Vice President Kamala Harris, X owner Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate, the Princess of Wales.
Time declined to confirm Trump’s selection before the announcement. Last year, company CEO Jessica Sibley rang the NYSE’s opening bell to unveil the magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year: Taylor Swift.
The NYSE regularly invites celebrities and business leaders to participate in the ceremonial opening trading at 9:30 am. On Thursday, Trump will take on the honor for the first time, which has become a hallmark of culture and politics.
During Trump’s first term, his wife, Melania Trump, rang the bell to promote her “Be Best” initiative for child welfare.
Donald Trump’s trip to New York from his adopted home of Florida to sound the call of capitalism in the mecca of the financial world tops a series of visits the former president has made to various places around the city this year.
In addition to his mandatory presence at a downtown courthouse for his trial, Trump, always attuned to the art of photography, held campaign events around the city: at a fire station, a bodega and a construction site. He also held a meeting in the Bronx, among places in the city where Trump made his entrance during the elections.
To mark the final stretch of his campaign, he held a high-octane rally at Madison Square Garden, which sparked an immediate backlash after speakers there rude and racist insults and inflammatory comments.
Trump has long had a fascination with being on the cover of Time, where he first appeared in 1989. He has falsely claimed to hold the record for cover appearances, and The Washington Post reported this in 2017 that Trump had a fake photo of himself on the cover of the magazine that hung in several of his golf clubs.
Trump created his image as a wealthy real estate developer, which he played up as the star of the TV reality show “The Apprentice” and during his presidential campaign. He won the election in part by channeling Americans’ concerns about the economy’s ability to provide for the middle class.
After the elections of November 5, the S&The P500 rose 2.5% for its best day in almost two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1,508 points, or 3.6%, while the Nasdaq composite rose 3%. All three indexes surpassed the records of the previous weeks.
Trump, who often looks at the stock market as a measure of public support, has said his upcoming term as president should be dated to the day after the election so that he is credited with the gains.
Trump’s campaign promises include promises to achieve historic levels of economic growth, and the people he selects to fill his new administration are heavily pro-business.
The wider business community has welcomed his promises to cut corporate taxes and reduce regulation. But there are also concerns about his announced plans to impose broad tariffs and possibly target companies he sees as not aligned with his own political interests.
The US stock market has historically tended to rise regardless of which side wins the White House, where Democrats have averaged bigger profits since 1945. But Republican control could mean big shifts in the winning and losing industries beneath the surface, and investors are adding to their previously made expectations about what the higher rates, lower tax rates and lighter regulations what Trump favors will mean.
In light of his election victory, his lawyers have done the same tried to get his conviction in the Manhattan case be thrown out.
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Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Josh Bo in Washington contributed to this report.