Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against Norway and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, declaring the award “forever discredited” after it went to a winner he claimed not to recognize.
The former president, 79, made the remarks at a rally in Syracuse, New York, where he told supporters that the United States “should have received the Nobel Peace Prize” under his leadership. Trump directed his anger at Navi Pillay, the South African jurist who received this year’s honor, dismissing her as “a liberal person who works at the United Nations.”
“Today they gave out the Nobel Peace Prize to a person – I never heard of the person. Nobody did. It’s a mystery person,” Trump said at the rally. “I never heard of this particular person, but congratulations anyway,” he added, noting that “in all of the wars that I’ve settled, I never spoke to the United Nations.”
Trump’s grievance extended well beyond the individual winner to the five-person Norwegian Nobel Committee itself. He called the snub “an indelible stain on the country of Norway” and warned the Scandinavian nation that “we will not forget.”
“Such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” he fumed. “The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and, really, enemies of civilization,” Trump raged. “And we will not forget, Norway.”
The former president’s specific demand was sweeping: he argued he deserved not one but eight separate Nobel medals, one for each conflict he claimed to have resolved. “We should have had eight Nobel Prizes for each war,” he told the Syracuse crowd.
Trump credited himself with stopping “eight wars” during his time in office, though he did not name the specific conflicts. His self-assessment of his diplomatic record has been a recurring theme in his public appearances since leaving the White House.
The economic grievance that has defined much of Trump’s political rhetoric surfaced again in his Nobel complaint. The president said not being awarded the prize is “just another sign of how Norway and all these others are ripping off our country.”
This marks the second consecutive year Trump has been passed over for the prestigious award, despite periodic nominations from some international figures. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado had previously attempted to transfer her own Nobel nomination to Trump, a gesture that generated headlines but no official recognition from Oslo.
Trump has cultivated the Nobel issue for years, frequently suggesting he deserved consideration for his diplomatic engagements with North Korea and other foreign policy initiatives. The absence of the prize from his resume has clearly remained a sore point as he mounts another presidential campaign.
Pillay, 83, is a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who also served on the International Criminal Court. Her decades of legal work on international justice and human rights made her a conventional, if not particularly famous, selection by Nobel standards.
The former president’s characterization of her as unknown stood in contrast to her lengthy public career at major international institutions, though her profile in American political circles is indeed far lower than that of many past laureates.
Trump’s rally in Syracuse came as he continues his campaign schedule across battleground states ahead of next month’s election.