Donald Trump’s renewed efforts aimed at brokering a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia may in fact have their roots in Trump’s most famous political grudge.
As the president prepares for a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska — potentially to be attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well — one of his former advisers sees a pattern emerging in Trump’s second-term foreign policy agenda that indicates the US president is seriously pining for what he sees as the ultimate sign of global recognition and respect: a Nobel Peace Prize.
But what John Bolton described to ABC’s This Week on Sunday as Trump’s latest fascination may have deeper psychological roots. And the biggest clue providing a glimpse into the president’s psyche is the simultaneous focus of his entire national security team on Barack Obama, Trump’s first-term predecessor and a figure many have argued propelled Trump’s political ambitions through mockery and dismissal.
Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser, explained Sunday that Trump’s peacemaking attempts in Ukraine were part of a clear bid for a Nobel Peace Prize. He pointed to the president’s efforts to claim credit for halting other global conflicts as part of the same concerted campaign; the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, and India’s clashes with Pakistan.
“I think what Trump has done is make it clear that he wants a Nobel Peace Prize more than anything else…. the way to his heart? Offer to nominate him,” Bolton told ABC News.
Though Bolton said that Trump was having mixed success: “I don’t think what he has done materially changes the situation in — in any of those circumstances, or several others he’s mentioned, like Pakistan/India, where the Indians, not just the government, the entire country are outraged that he tried to take credit for [a peace agreement].”
On Friday, the president invited the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the White House to sign a peace agreement. The deal is aimed at ending decades of conflict, but builds on a peace process moderated by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and a previous agreement crafted by Russia that the two countries signed. Writing Thursday on Truth Social, Trump boasted of his role in reaching the agreement.
The agreement between the two nations will create a major trade and transit corridor called the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.” It will connect mainland Azerbaijan with the autonomous Nakhchivan region, satisfying a major objective of the Azerbaijani government in the peace talks between the countries.
Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard and Attorney General Pam Bondi collaborate on an effort to reignite interest in “Russiagate” and the 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign. And the president himself continues to rage against a man he now accuses of “treason” and efforts to rig the 2016 and possibly 2020 elections. Gabbard has eagerly echoed his accusations and argued that the Obama administration’s efforts to call out Russian election interference efforts should be considered a “coup”.
Bondi acted to give the pair as much political cover at the Justice Department as possible; the embattled attorney general opened a grand jury probe into the “Russiagate” investigation this past week, even despite a previous DOJ special counsel review finding no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the case. No charges have been filed yet against Obama or anyone else.
Combined with Trump’s bid to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a clear pattern is emerging. As former RNC chair Michael Steele (the only Black chair in the Republican Party’s history) wrote earlier this year in an op-ed for MSNBC: “It’s clear that Obama has been living in Trump’s head rent-free for the last two decades. Some think he first ran for president because Obama made fun of him at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. He mistakenly called Biden by Obama’s name multiple times while campaigning, once even saying he beat Obama in 2016.”
“Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize? Trump spends years obsessing about winning it himself,” Steele added.
In March, Bolton saw the connection too. He told the New York Times that Trump “saw that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize and felt if Obama got it for not doing anything, why should he not get it?” The Times noted other instances where Trump has publicly and privately groused about not getting the award in spite of Obama’s reception.
“If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” the president told the Detroit Economic Club last year.
The evidence is clear: Trump is entering the latest phase of a years-long obsession with a political foe who consumes more of his attention than Joe Biden and even, at this point, Hillary Clinton. Obama is, in reality, Trump’s one unvanquished foe remaining on the left. But he’s also the last U.S. president who commanded clear respect and admiration not just in the U.S. but around the world, where he was invited to speak before the legislative bodies of the UK, Canada and Australia as well as to huge crowds elsewhere, like Germany and his father’s home country of Kenya. The 44th president, the nation’s first Black commander-in-chief, struck a nerve in Trump early and the man who would succeed Obama spent years coordinating a false, racist campaign of abuse centered around Obama’s heritage and birthplace. Hillary Clinton won his attention and became a focus of his anger during and after the 2016 election, though she’s largely faded from his view.
But while the president can order his Cabinet members and aides to launch probes and issue statements tarnishing Obama’s reputation, he’s found so far that his ability to solve geopolitical conflicts is far more limited. Even as Trump has seen some success bullying U.S. trading partners into line with his “reciprocal” tariffs, his promises to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza overnight have dissolved into failure.
The international community waits to see whether this grudge-turned-ambition will propel Trump to actually force the end of a three-year war in Ukraine or the bloody siege and starvation of Gaza caused by Israel’s blockade, or whether he will once again be frustrated by the realities that have thwarted his efforts so far.
