Trump Claims He Should Have Won ‘8 Nobel Peace Prizes’ as He Attacks Laureate Navi Pillay
President Trump lashed out at the Norwegian Nobel Committee late Friday night, insisting he deserved eight Peace Prizes and disparaging laureate Navi Pillay as an Israel hater — while she joked at a Nuremberg conference that she might share the prize with him.
President Donald Trump’s indignation at being passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize boiled over late at night on Oct. 9, as he lashed out at the prize committee and disparaged this year’s laureate in a social media post, according to USA Today.
“In actuality, I should have won 8 Nobel Peace Prizes, not just 1,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee instead chose Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a South African lawyer and former judge on the International Criminal Court, for her efforts to promote peace and international law — in a year where, as USA Today noted, Trump went to war with Iran and ousted Venezuela’s leader in a military operation.
“I know nothing about this woman, and neither does anyone else! In fact, to the best of my knowledge, no one ever heard of her other than the fact that she, very obviously, hates Israel,” Trump wrote, according to USA Today.
Pillay, who won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, led the U.N.’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which determined that Israel committed genocide in Gaza in its war against Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
A joke in Nuremberg
Pillay was at an annual conference of human rights lawyers in Nuremberg, Germany, when she learned about receiving the prize. Her colleagues erupted in cheers after learning about Pillay’s win, USA Today reported.
“If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” she joked, eliciting laughs from the gathered crowd.
Sanctions and the ICC
The Nobel Committee defended the importance of international law and its institutions while awarding the prize to Pillay, a reference to the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the International Criminal Court. U.S. officials have targeted the court in response to a previous investigation into the conduct of U.S. service members in Afghanistan and its decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza.
Hours after Pillay was announced as the recipient of the award, the Trump administration imposed severe financial sanctions against the ICC, her former employer. The court was founded in 2002 to investigate and prosecute individuals for war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.
“This is an indelible stain on Norway, one that will never be forgotten,” Trump wrote. “The Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of Radical Ideologues who are Anti-Democracy, and Enemies of Civilization!”
Reporting based on coverage by USA Today.
