President Donald Trump has never shied away from lashing out against any slight against him, real or perceived, but after the Norwegian committee responsible for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize snubbed him in favor of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado he held this tonge on the matter — at least for a few hours.
During a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday announcing new reduced drug costs stemming from a deal with U.K. based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Trump was asked how he felt about the Nobel Prize announcement.
Trump began by referencing the recent ceasefire and hostage release negotiated between Israel and Hamas, calling it the “most important deal ever made in terms of peace,” and took credit for the accomplishment. That deal is still a long way from a peaceful resolution, as no hostages have been released, Israel has still not withdrawn from Gaza, and Hamas has not disarmed.
But that did not stop Trump from lumping it in with the other seven “wars” he says he’s helped to end during his presidency, explaining several of the conflicts in detail before commenting on Machado, who actually won the prize.
“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me and said, I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it. A very nice thing to do,” Trump said.
He then assured reporters that he didn’t demand the award from Machado.
“I didn’t say ‘then give it to me,’ though, I think she might have,” Trump said. “She was very nice. And I’ve been, you know, I’ve been helping her along the way. She — they need a lot of help in Venezuela, it’s a basic disaster.”
His comments following the 5pm press conference were the first he’d made publicly about the announcement.
A glut of social media posts emanating from the president’s Truth Social account Friday morning touched on multiple subjects, including reposting praise he’d received for his role in helping broker the deal that has brought about a ceasefire in Israel’s two-year-old war against Hamas in Gaza as of Friday morning.
One post included a clip from a show on the conservative Newsmax television network in which the host credited Trump with helping bring about peace to the Middle East region even though the deal had yet to be approved by Israel’s cabinet at the time.
Another touched on the Thursday indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James by a Virginia grand jury, the second set of charges against one of the president’s Democratic antagonists in as many weeks.
A third Friday morning post included video of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman — a New York lawyer who served in the role during Trump’s first term — praising the president’s negotiating skills, while two more contained no text but merely reposted clips of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s combative testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week.
While one Trump message posted late Thursday included a Fox News article quoting mothers of children killed by illegal immigrants — so-called “Angel Moms” — calling for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, not a single one of the president’s posts addressed the fact that Machado, not he, had been awarded the honor.
Trump has long lobbied for the prize and had hoped his role in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement struck earlier this week might finally have clinched it for him.
Excitable members of the president’s MAGA coalition, led by his son Eric Trump, had called for him to be rewarded for his efforts in seeking to bring peace to Gaza, with more than one claiming the deal was so significant that the entire prize should be renamed after him in place of founder Alfred Nobel.
But Trump himself did not dare get his hopes up, giving a cagey answer when he was asked about his prospects by a reporter at the White House on Wednesday.
“I have no idea,” he answered her. “I mean, look, I did settle — Marco [Rubio] will tell you — we did settle seven wars. We’re close to settling an eighth, and I think we’ll end up settling the Russia situation, which is horrible… I think we’ll settle that, so… I don’t think anybody in history has settled that many, but perhaps they’ll find a reason not to give it to me.”
Had Trump been victorious, he would have been the fifth American president to receive the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Jimmy Carter (2002), and, most importantly for the current commander-in-chief, Barack Obama (2009).
While Trump stayed mum in the morning, the rest of MAGA-world wasn’t as quiet.
White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung ripped the decision in a social media post: “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will. The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter went on TV to campaign for Trump winning the prize and had a new plan after the decision.
“Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize,” Carter told Fox Business. “That’s why I’m introducing a resolution today that will honor him with the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Joe Sommerlad contributed reporting from London and Graig Graziosi contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
