Donald Trump Rings NY Stock Exchange Bell as He’s Named TIME Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President-elect Donald Trump just can’t stop winning. On Thursday he rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange as he was confirmed TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year” and was met by cheers and applause from the trading floor as well as cries of “USA… USA.”
Trump was on Wall Street to mark the ceremonial start of the day’s trading in a gesture first performed by fellow Republican President Ronald Reagan back in the mid-1980s.
Before he rang the opening bell at 9:30 a.m. Trump spoke at the exchange and called it “a tremendous honor.”
“Time Magazine, getting this honor for the second time, I think I like it better this time actually,” he said.
AP reports in his remarks, the born-and-bred New Yorker talked up some of the people he has named to his incoming administration, including Treasury pick Scott Bessent, and some of his announced policies, including a promise this week that the federal government will issue expedited permits, including environmental approvals, for projects and construction worth more than $1 billion.
“I think we’re going to have a tremendous run. We have to straighten out some problems, some big problems in the world,” he said.
Breitbart News had earlier reported on the singular honor.
Trump was named the magazine’s Person of the Year in 2016, when he was first elected to the White House.
He had already been listed as a finalist for this year’s award alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, X owner Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate, the Princess of Wales, the AP report notes.
The ringing of the bell has been a powerful symbol of U.S. capitalism since the 1880s and despite his decades as a New York businessman, Trump has never done it before.
The first guest to do it was a 10-year-old boy named Leonard Ross, in 1956, who won a quiz show answering questions about the stock market.
President Ronald Reagan performed the signal honor back in the mid-1980s.
Adopting the jargon of Wall Street, where a bear market declines and a bull market rises, Reagan said back then if Congress adopts the tax overhaul and budget restraints he wants, “our economy will be free to expand to its full potential, driving the bears back into permanent hibernation.
File/Original Caption/ New York: President Reagan addresses crowd of traders and runners assembled on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 28, 1985. “We’re bullish on the American economy,” he said. It was the first time an American President visited the NYSE while in office. (GETTY)
“That’s our economic program for the next four years,” Reagan said. “We’re going to turn the bull loose.”
The stock exchange regularly invites celebrities and business leaders to participate in the ceremonial opening and closing of trading. During Trump’s first term, his wife, Melania Trump, rang the bell to promote her “Be Best” initiative on children’s well-being.
Last year, TIME CEO Jessica Sibley rang the opening bell to unveil the magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year: Taylor Swift.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
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