"To be on the cover of Time as Person of the Year is a tremendous honor," Trump told Matt Lauer in an interview after the reveal.

The president-elect did however take issue with the magazine's choice to refer to him as "President of the Divided States of America."

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"When you say 'divided states of America,' I didn’t divide them," Trump said. "They’re divided now, there’s a lot of division. And we’re going to put it back together."

Nadav Kander / TIME

President-elect Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year for 2016

Every year, TIME editors select the person — or idea — who has most influenced the news and the world in the past year, for good or ill.

"So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer," TIME managing editor Nancy Gibbs wrote in a magazine essay.

Trump beat out 10 other finalists, including his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. TIME declared Clinton their runner-up, and she was also the top pick among TODAY viewers.

Nadav Kander / TIME

The president-elect, shown in his private living room in Trump Tower.

This will be Trump’s 10th time on the magazine’s cover, and all but one have been since August 2015. His first appearance on TIME was in 1989.

Hewlett-Packard / TIME

Donald Trump on the cover of TIME in 1989, 2015, and 2016. Trump has appeared on the magazine's cover 10 times.

"For reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year," Gibbs wrote.

Last year’s recipient was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump was a runner-up. The year before that, 2014, the Person of the Year were the Ebola fighters.

Over its history, TIME has bestowed the title to many presidents, political leaders and industry trailblazers who often view the designation as an honor. However, the magazine also has selected notorious recipients in the past, including Adolf Hitler in 1938, Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942, and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, because of the impact they had on the world at the time.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Trump, at an Orlando campaign rally in October.

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