Donald Trump says he was ‘Man of the Year’. His source says it isn’t true

Former President Donald Trump at the Detroit Economic Club. Photo / Emily Elconin, The New York Times

Fact-checkers have found no evidence over the years that former President Donald Trump once received the honour in Michigan.

Former President Donald Trump expressed irritation Thursday that anyone would challenge his claim that he had been declared “man of the year” in Michigan many years ago. During a speech in Detroit, he triumphantly pulled out a news story to prove that he was right.

The only problem: The news outlet that published the story corrected it online shortly after he cited it. The revised version of the story that he held up as evidence that his memory was correct now reports that his memory was wrong.

At issue is a claim that Trump has been making since at least 2016 and that he repeated on the campaign trail just last month. “Years ago, in this area I was honoured as the man of the year,” he said during a campaign event September 27 in Warren, Michigan. “It was maybe 20 years ago.”

For years, fact-checkers have found no indication that that ever happened. A former Republican congressman from Michigan, Dave Trott, told CNN, The Detroit News and other news organisations in 2019 that Trump was referring to a Republican dinner in the state’s Oakland County in 2013 that Trott had organised. Trott said Trump had been given gifts but no “man of the year” award at that event.

Trump raised the issue again Thursday during an appearance at the Detroit Economic Club, where he complained that a recent New York Times article exploring the impact of age on his speeches and memory had cited that as an example of unverified claims that he often makes. Trump, 78, is the oldest major party presidential nominee in American history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes his next term.

“This was long before – many years before I ran for president, maybe 18 or 20 years ago,” Trump told the Detroit audience, referring to the supposed man-of-the-year honour. In response to the Times story, he said that he had instructed his staff to find proof that he really did win the long-ago award. “It was like 19 years ago. It was a long time. But I was honoured. And guess what? They found it. I was.”

At that point, Trump pulled out of his coat pocket a printout of a story from the Oakland Press, a local newspaper. “So here’s your article right here,” he said holding it up for the crowd. Then he read the headline out loud: “Oakland County GOP to Honor Donald Trump: Former president to speak at upcoming Lincoln Day fundraising dinner.”

But the article that he held up was not about some honour 18 or 20 years ago, long before he ran for president, as he had just told the audience. Instead, it was about a party dinner where he was to speak in June 2023, at which his Republican hosts planned to declare him “Man of the Decade”. This took place long after Trump began making his claim about having been Michigan’s man of the year as long as two decades ago.

The original Oakland Press article did refer to the 2013 dinner and incorrectly said that Trump had been named man of the year then. But after Trump held up the article Thursday, the news outlet deleted that from the article and appended an editor’s note. “He was not honoured as Man of the Year,” the editor’s note said.

“We’re setting the record straight,” the editor’s note continued, “after the former president incorrectly cited the 2013 Man of the Year award during a recent speech to the Detroit Economic Club.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Peter Baker

Photographs by: Emily Elconin

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