President Trump lost out on earning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize despite brokering a historic cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas after more than two years of war.
But it wasn’t a snub, more just a case of bad timing — the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee made its decision on Monday, two days before the peace deal was struck, to bestow the award to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
“We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what — for them — leads to peace,” Nobel Peace Prize Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said Friday.
“This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates. That room is filled with both courage and integrity. We base only our decision on the work and will of Alfred Nobel.”
Footage from the streets of Tel Aviv and war-torn Gaza showed crowds of cheering revelers chanting Trump’s name in the hours after the deal was secured, some calling out “Nobel Prize to Trump!”
Trump has also garnered widespread peacenik accolades during his second term in office for his efforts to tamp down the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Many of the president’s allies have called for him to receive the award, pointing to his work to bring about peace in long-standing global conflicts between Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda; Cambodia and Thailand; India and Pakistan; Serbia and Kosovo; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) was the latest to nominate the commander in chief for the award Thursday “in recognition of his extraordinary record of diplomatic achievement.”
Barr wrote in his letter to Jørgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, that no “world leader has done more to advance peace and prosperity in the world than President Donald Trump.”
A source close to Trump said winning the prestigious honor Friday would be a surprise and that next year’s prize is being eyed as a stronger possibility.
Critics, however, point to actions like June’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, musings about taking Greenland from Denmark and renaming the Defense Department the Department of War as reasons he should not have been considered for the coveted award.
Four US presidents have won the prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906; Woodrow Wilson in 1920; Jimmy Carter in 2002; and Barack Obama in 2009.
