The Republican called the designation an honor in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday.

President-elect Donald Trump has one more accolade to add to this year’s list of accomplishments: He has been named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year .

President-elect Donald Trump has been TIME’s Person of the Year for 2016.

On its front cover, TIME called President-elect Trump “President of the Divided States of America,” which he found to be problematic.

“I didn’t divide ’em,” he said.

“We’re gonna do a lot of great things. It’s going to be something very special,” he said of his incoming administration.

The criterion for the selection is “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year,” according to TIME.


In discussing his transition, Trump said former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is still under consideration to be secretary of state.

Trump said he expects to announce the pick next week.

Trump also said he and President Barack Obama “have a really good chemistry together.”

“I really like him as a person,” Trump said.

The real estate mogul also defended his use of Twitter, saying he considers himself to be very restrained, which he had promised to be on the social media platform after the election.

One of his frequent targets has been “Saturday Night Live,” particularly Alec Baldwin’s imitation of him on the program.

“It’s not a good show anymore. . . . It’s meant to be very mean-spirited, which is very biased, and I don’t like it.”

TIME’s managing editor Nancy Gibbs said Clinton was the No. 2 finalist. She said the choice of Trump this year was “straightforward.”

Other leaders who have been selected for the designation by the magazine include Mohandas Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.


Watch: Trump on the ‘Today’ show

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report. Nicole Hernandez can be reached at nicole.hernandez@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @NRHSJax.