Fact Check: Trump Insists He Was Named ‘Man of the Year’ in Michigan

Donald Trump’s first rally since the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday was more subdued for the former president, who thanked Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for conversations he’d had with them.
Appearing in Flint, Michigan on Tuesday, joined by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump spoke to supporters about plans to open new factories and impose tariffs on foreign car manufacturers in an attempt to win votes there.
Appealing to the audience elsewhere, Trump said he had been awarded “Man of the Year” in Michigan, a claim he said had been incorrectly debunked by the press.
The Claim
During a speech in Flint, Michigan, on September 17, 2024, Donald Trump told Sarah Huckabee Sanders that the press had incorrectly said that he had not been named “Man of the Year” in Michigan, which he has previously claimed.
“You know, when I think of this state, it’s so sad,” Trump said.
“Years ago, I was given, thank you very much, but years ago, I was given an award as like man of the year or something from an area that nobody knew and the press said, ‘Oh, it never happened.’
“Well, then it did happen. They found out where it was, but it was like 15 years ago, a beautiful area, but nobody remembered it.
“Nobody remembered it all. All of a sudden, like through a miracle, they found out it did exist and it was there.”
The Facts
What’s interesting about this is Trump’s story about the claim—that he was accused of making a falsehood, a conclusion he says was incorrect.
However, there is no new evidence to show that Trump’s “Man of the Year” claim is any more accurate now than before.
One sign of this claim’s flimsiness is Trump’s recollection of receiving the award. In June 2024, at a rally in Detroit, he claimed it was “12, 13 years ago” while it was 15 years ago this week in Michigan. After the rally, CNN spoke with Dave Trott, a former Michigan Republican congressman linked to the claim.
At a 2017 roundtable in which Trott was present, Trump said he had been given the Man of the Year award in Michigan in 2013 at an event Trott invited him to. While Trott gave him a copy of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, no Man of the Year award was received.
Trott, speaking to the Detroit News about the 2017 roundtable, said he “wasn’t comfortable correcting him in front of a group of automotive CEOs. It maybe would’ve been embarrassing to him. Maybe not. I don’t know. It would have been to me,” he said.
“I just nodded and said it was a great speech and pivoted to that. Which it was. The speech was very well-received. It was kind of a precursor to the speeches we hear these days, every day.”
Fact checks and research by Newsweek, FactCheck.organd Intelligencer established that Trump did not receive a “Man of the Year” award.
While Trump was awarded “Man of the Decade” by Michigan’s Oakland County GOP in 2023, as reported by the Associated Press, this does not appear to have anything to do with the claim Trump made on Tuesday.
Newsweek has contacted a media representative for Trump for comment.
The Ruling
False.
Trump’s insistence that he was awarded “Man of the Year” by people in Michigan is not supported by evidence.
He has made various claims about the time he won the award and where but repeat investigations have not uncovered it. While Trump has recalled receiving the award at an event in 2013, a Republican congressman who invited to him to that event said no such award was presented.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team