Donald Trump pulled off the ultimate political comeback in 2024 when he managed to win the presidential election and propel Republicans to capture both houses of Congress, and for that feat he was recognized as Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
The president-elect gave Time an interview late last month as part of the feature, and the wide-ranging conversation is already making headlines on several fronts.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by the hosts of Ruthless – John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and Comfortably Smug – to discuss Trump’s title and the new information we are learning about how he won the 2024 election.
The ‘Turnaround’
When you consider the year Trump has had, Megyn said Time had no choice but to recognize him. “Even if Trump lost, you could make the case that it should have been Trump given the assassination attempt and all of that,” she noted. “But you have to stop for a moment and just say what a turnaround. I mean, Time Magazine had that picture on the cover of him with a golf cart right before the election that said “In Trouble” and was part of the media that was calling him Hitler and fascist. And now? He’s ‘Person of the Year.'”
While Ashbrook called the annual recognition an “outdated credential from a legacy media property that’s been a cadaver for who knows how long,” he said Trump was the only possible selection to make.
“This is a guy who was indicted, what, 47 times in three jurisdictions in the early part of this year… Two assassination attempts. He clinches the nomination… and then becomes president of the United States,” he explained. “I don’t think there is any man in American politics who has been more doubted than Donald Trump, and he proved everyone wrong. I had my doubts myself at various times. It didn’t look so super good for him. The man overcame all of it.”
The Headlines
While the title may be outdated, the reporting in the accompanying profile of Trump was not. Time national political correspondent Eric Cortellessa, executive features editor Alex Altman, Washington bureau chief Massimo Calabresi, and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs conducted a joint interview with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago on November 25, and between his answers and the insights of his team there was plenty to be learned.
Abortion
Among the revelations was how Trump’s stance on abortion legislation came to be. He had apparently been considering supporting a 16-week national ban because it polled better than a 24-week limit – until he was presented information that changed his mind.
Time reported that, during a conference call in late March, Trump’s speechwriter and policy advisor Vince Haley asked whether the candidate realized “that the 16-week ban will be stricter than existing law in a lot of the states.” The team realized Trump probably didn’t know and his political director, James Blair, prepared a presentation titled “How a national abortion ban will cost Trump the election” that led to Trump’s decision to take the states’ rights approach.
“Right after that decision, we had a debate about his stance on abortion and how it had disappointed some of the more establishment conservatives in the party. But we defended it here as smart politics given the state of the electorate and the mood of the country on this issue,” Megyn recalled. “It is amazing how Trump got a couple of data points [and made a decision]. Everything for him is transactional. This one is not deep in his core. He is like, ‘What’s gonna get me elected?’ And that’s where he landed.”
Early Voting
The piece also explored how Trump came around to the idea of early voting. “This was such an irritant for almost every Republican who has been watching elections,” Megyn said. “Why is he bashing early voting? It is the only way we’re ever going to win again.”
As Time told it, people close to Trump were encouraging him to stop opposing the practice, but it took a visit from Rob Gleason, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, to really change his mind. “Sir, your people are so excited to vote for you that they want to as soon as they can,” Gleason reportedly told Trump in April. “They don’t want to wait. But you gotta tell them it’s OK. You gotta give them permission.”
From then on, Time said, Trump “promoted absentee and early voting, and directed the RNC to launch a mobilization drive targeting mail voters.”
Megyn said the framing was brilliant and proved to be the right way to appeal to Trump. Ashbrook agreed. “It also happens to be true. I mean, everybody was excited to get out and vote for him. That’s why he won the popular vote,” he said. “And there was some confusion about whether people should be voting early… When Trump announced that he was for it, it not only cleared up the confusion, but what he built and what they built at the RNC to turn out the vote was monumental.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ruthless by tuning in to episode 963 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.