President Donald Trump has been caught on a hot mic complaining that he wasn’t awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and fuming that his peacemaking skills aren’t getting enough credit.
Two months after he lost his bid to win the long-coveted accolade, Trump vented his ongoing frustration to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who later offered the president his nation’s highest honor.
The candid moment came as Trump and members of his team sat down with the Israeli delegation for lunch at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, where they discussed the next stage of the ceasefire in Gaza.
As the cameras rolled, Trump began boasting about his negotiating tactics, including how he “stopped a war” between two countries by threatening them with “200 per cent tariffs.”
“Do I get credit for it? No. They gave the Nobel - …” he said, before stopping mid-sentence as he looked up at the media.
“I did eight of them. How about India and Pakistan? I did eight of them. And then I’ll tell you the rest of it,” Trump concluded, before addressing the press pool.
“How are you doing, OK?” he asked them. “You all going to be outside in the beautiful sun?” The media was then ushered out of the room.
Trump had spent most of the year vying for a Nobel Peace Prize, with allies such as Netanyahu lobbying the Norwegian Nobel Committee on his behalf.
But the committee announced in October that this year’s award would go to Venezuelan democracy advocate and opposition leader María Corina Machado, prompting claims that Trump was “robbed” and that the committee had chosen “politics over peace.”
Since then, Trump’s allies have sought to ease his pain—and bolster his ego—by awarding him various other prizes.
In October, days after his Nobel snub, the Richard Nixon Foundation gave Trump their Architect of Peace Award as a consolation prize for his ongoing efforts.
Earlier this month, FIFA President Gianni Infantino went even further, presenting Trump with an award made up just for him: the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize”.
The widely mocked award was presented to the president during the World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, which has now been renamed after Trump.
And during yesterday’s luncheon at Mar-a-Lago, Israel informed Trump that they too would be giving him a gong: the Israel Prize, which is considered the country’s highest honor.
“President Trump has broken so many conventions to the surprise of people, and then they figure out: oh well, maybe he was right after all. So we decided to break a convention too, or create a new one,” Netanyahu later informed reporters.
“And that is to award the Israel Prize, which in almost our 80 years, we’ve never awarded it to a non-Israeli. We’re going to award it this year to President Trump.”
Trump said the award “was really surprising, and very much appreciated.”
And in a gesture very much appreciated by Israel, he also announced the U.S. could support another major strike on Iran if it were to resume rebuilding its ballistic missile or nuclear weapons programs.
“If they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup. The consequences will be very powerful. Maybe more powerful than the last time,” Trump said, referring to the US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
“We’ll knock them down,” he added. “We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that’s not happening.”
The 12-day war between Israel and Iran is one of the eight conflicts Trump credits himself for resolving. The others, however, are somewhat murkier.
Other wars Trump claims to have “ended” include Cambodia and Thailand (where fighting has broken out again); India and Pakistan (which India disputes) and Rwanda and Congo (where the war is far from over).
