Melania Emerges as Surprise Rival for Trump’s Dream Prize
The first couple may have a new jealousy problem.
Evan Vucci/REUTERS
The Nobel Peace Prize may be bringing anything but peace to Donald Trump’s marriage.
Melania Trump has passed her husband on prediction markets for the honor that he has spent years chasing to no avail.
The 56-year-old first lady sits in second place on Kalshi’s 2027 Nobel Peace Prize market, which opened Tuesday, with a 4 percent chance, trailing only Doctors Without Borders, which has a 4.6 percent chance.
Trump, meanwhile, is languishing at just 1.1 percent on Kalshi. Several other contenders are ahead of him, including his wife, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Pope Leo XIV, the International Criminal Court—which Trump sanctioned this month—and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Trump was awarded a made-up FIFA Peace Prize at the Kennedy Center last year after losing out on the real Nobel Peace Prize.
Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS
The news rubs salt in the wound for the 80-year-old president, who has long had an obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize and whined at a rally on Sunday that he told Melania he would win the 2026 award, only for it to go to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a former U.N. human rights chief and judge.
“I said to our great first lady, ‘First lady, I get the Nobel Prize in two weeks,’ and it’ll be an honor, you know. I feel much better about saving all those lives,” he said, referring to his claim that he “settled eight wars.”
“And it was announced, and it was gotten by a woman that nobody ever heard of. I said, What about me? Do they do two of them?” Trump added.
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The octogenarian then unleashed a profanity-laced tirade against Norway, blurring the line between the Scandinavian nation and the Norwegian Nobel Committee that awards the prize.
“So I’m not in love with Norway. Frankly, Norway sucks. Norway has become a s--thouse country, actually,” he rambled.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Melania’s strong showing in the prediction market presumably stems from her role in brokering a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky, though that account has since come under scrutiny.
Trump has praised Melania’s efforts in Ukraine, claiming to reporters that she is “doing better than the professionals right now.”
Eric Lee/REUTERS
While the White House credited her with negotiating the ceasefire single-handedly, she was quickly slammed and accused of trying to steal credit from Pope Leo.
Pillay, a South African human rights lawyer who led a United Nations commission that concluded last year that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, mocked the president’s desperation to be given the prize.
“If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” she said in a video posted by French human rights activist and Amnesty International chief Agnès Callamard.
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