Politics
TIME
"I think they absolutely picked the wrong person, the Republican presidential front-runner said Thursday on "Fox & Friends."
"I think they picked the person that's really done tremendous damage to Germany," he continued. "And Germany's got a lot of problems right now, including crime that it never had. And I think you're going to see a total disaster."
Trump was a finalist but the magazine ultimately selected Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday, citing her work on behalf Europe's currency and refugee crises.
But Trump argued that Merkel made a mistake by opening Germany up to people fleeing Syria's civil war.
"You see what's happening with the hundreds of thousands of refugees. Germany is in turmoil and there's crime all over the place," said Trump, who has said he would send the US' Syrian refugees back if he becomes president.
"Europe's going through a problem now. They've never had this before in a million years," he added. "I mean, we are watching something take place in the world because of leaders and our [US] president is at the top of the leader list of making bad decisions. But if you look at what's happening to Europe - and Germany is the one that's caused a lot of the problems - so when they chose her I was actually very surprised."
During his Fox News interview, Trump also touted Fox host Bill O'Reilly for saying the billionaire businessman should have been selected "Person of the Year."
"He said I should have been chosen," Trump said. "But with that, I said I'll never be chosen because I'm not a part of the Time establishment. ... They picked somebody that I thought was inappropriate. But I said I would never be chosen by Time - even though I was on their cover a few weeks ago."