WASHINGTON — Twice in President Donald Trump’s first term, a Norwegian lawmaker stepped forward to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now, when Christian Tybring-Gjedde watches Trump maneuver to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia, he doesn’t see the same sort of diplomatic outreach that warrants a third.
“He is dictating terms that the Europeans are very scared of and are really worried about what’s going to come of this,” Tybring-Gjedde said in an interview. “Right now, I don’t think there’s the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize. But you never know.”
A peace deal looks more elusive now than at any point since Trump’s return to power. His meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned dark, with Trump browbeating his counterpart for not being grateful enough for U.S. firepower that helped repel Russia’s invasion.
Negotiations with Ukraine appear to have collapsed for now, jeopardizing Trump’s pledge to bring a quick end to the war — and perhaps spoiling his best shot at winning an award that has been on his mind for years.
Four American presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize, none named Trump. That missing piece of the resume grates on him, former aides say, as was evident during his meeting in the Oval Office last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about the award. “It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
If not, it won’t be for lack of trying.
In the space of a few days last week, no fewer than three senior Trump administration officials or nominees made a case for Trump winning the prize, using similar talking points.
Unprompted, both Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations, told conservative activists that Trump is a president “of peace” who deserves the award.
“He is going to end the war in Europe. He is going to end the wars in the Middle East,” Waltz told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“And you know what?” he added. “By the end of this, we’re going to have the Nobel Peace Prize sitting next to the name of Donald J. Trump.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also mentioned the prize during an interview with Fox News. Without prompting, Bessent said Trump’s plan to end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia merits the honor. If “fairly awarded,” he added, “I think in a year he should get it from what I’ve seen.”
The odds are tough and may hinge on the particulars of a truce between Russia and Ukraine — if there is one.
Fears have risen in recent weeks that Trump will use his leverage to end the war on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s terms. His rhetoric has grown discernibly more hostile to Ukraine.
Even before the angry meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, he called Zelenskyy a “dictator” and suggested that Ukraine instigated the war.
Now, Trump’s anger has spilled into public view. As Zelenskyy sat with arms folded, Trump and Vice President JD Vance scolded him like they would a disobedient schoolboy.
“Have you said ‘thank you’ once in this entire meeting?” Vance said to Zelenskyy.
In a testy tone, Trump told the Ukrainian leader, “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think that it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards.”
At one point, Trump suggested he had bonded with Putin during his first term over what he called a “phony witch hunt” involving investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
“Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said.
Afterward, the White House canceled a side-by-side news conference with Trump and Zelenskyy, who was told to leave the building. He’s not welcome back, Trump later said in a statement, until he is “ready for Peace”
If Trump forges an agreement that’s favorable to Russia while leaving the rest of Europe vulnerable to Putin’s aggression, that might sour any prospect of winning the prize. A pro-Russia deal may not sit well with the Nobel selection committee, whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian parliament.
“In Norway, we are bordering on Russia. This is very tough for all of us, because we are the ones who will be in jeopardy if Russia keeps on taking territory,” said Tybring-Gjedde, a member of Norway’s parliament serving on the defense and foreign affairs committees.
The National Security Council did not return a request for comment for this article.
‘They probably will never give it to me’
The Nobel Peace Prize became a running subplot of Trump’s first term. At times he sounded captivated by the award.
At a future farmers event in Indianapolis in 2018, Trump mentioned a previous American winner who had died nine years earlier, Norman Borlaug, a plant scientist who had helped combat global famine.
While praising Borlaug, he said: “Can you believe it? He won the Nobel Peace Prize.”
“They probably will never give it to me, even what I’m doing in Korea, and in Idlib province and all of these places,” Trump added. “They probably will never give it to me. You know why? Because they don’t want to.”
Trump had two real shots at winning one back then: his efforts to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons (that didn’t happen) and to normalize relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors (that one did).
In September 2020, Tybring-Gjedde nominated him for the Middle East peace deal known as the Abraham Accords, though when the winners were announced the following year, Trump was skunked.
Co-winners Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov were journalists who had exposed abuses of power in the Philippines and Russia, respectively.
Even the nomination was something the White House chose to celebrate. The White House press office released a statement drawing attention it. Campaigning for re-election in Ohio that month, Trump complained that the press hadn’t paid enough to attention to the nomination, though having one’s name put forward isn’t necessarily a rare distinction.
The list of people allowed to nominate someone is long. Quite long.
Any member of a national legislature can put someone’s name before the selection committee. (Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., nominated Trump last year). So can Cabinet ministers and heads of state (Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nominated Trump for the 2019 prize). And university professors. And retired university professors. And someone serving on the board of directors of an organization that once won the prize. And anyone who advised the Nobel Committee in the past.
Since Trump ran his first winning presidential campaign in 2016, an average of 323 people or groups a year have been nominated for the prize. That’s enough to fill the rosters of six NFL teams.
Earlier this week, Trump hosted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House. One topic they discussed was whether Trump would impose tariffs on Britain.
If Starmer wants to ingratiate himself with Trump, there’s an easy way to do it, said John Bolton, the White House national security adviser in Trump’s first term.
“People say, ‘What would you recommend Starmer do?’ and I said I would recommend that he nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize,” Bolton said in an interview.
Trump, he added, “is definitely obsessed with it.”
A look at some previous winners suggests that Trump would be something of an anomaly if he’s chosen. He’s out of step with a few of the past winners.
In 2012, the prize went to the European Union. At his first Cabinet meeting, held this week, Trump said he’d soon be placing a 25% tariff on goods from the E.U., an institution he said was “formed in order to screw the United States.”
Trump’s allies say he has reason to be peeved. The last president to win the award was Barack Obama, who got it just nine months into his presidency, before he had notched any real achievements. Even Obama acknowledged in his acceptance speech that his accomplishments were “slight.”
“I think the fair question to ask is, would Barack Obama have won for helping bring an end to the war” between Russia and Ukraine, Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff, said in an interview. “And I think we all know the answer to that question.”
The makeup of the Nobel selection committee could impede whatever chance Trump might have. Winners aren’t chosen based on isolated actions. A candidate’s “personality” also comes into play.
“I will only remind you that any candidate for any Nobel Prize must have given a contribution to the greatest benefit of humankind,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, a former chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told NBC News.
The committee’s new chairman, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, is also secretary-general of PEN Norway, a group whose mission includes supporting free expression and “writers at risk.”
That’s not the career path of a MAGA enthusiast. Trump has faced criticism over his treatment of U.S. journalists on free speech grounds. One of his early actions has been to bar The Associated Press wire service from Air Force One and certain events in which only a small group of “pool” reporters are allowed to watch and ask questions.
The punishment stems from the AP’s decision to stick with the name “Gulf of Mexico,” while noting that Trump has renamed it the “Gulf of America.” The AP has filed suit to have its access restored.
Elite recognition
Why would Trump care about the prize? He rode to power as a populist who disdains the elite. Yet the Nobel Peace Prize brims with elite validation.
That’s the duality. Trump may be allied with the MAGA movement, but some part of him seems to pine for elite recognition. He often mentions an uncle who taught at the prestigious MIT. When Pete Hegseth struggled to win Senate confirmation, Trump vouched for him in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” by mentioning that Hegseth had gone to Ivy League schools.
But envy may play a role, as well. Obama’s prize was a sore point for Trump, said Bolton and another former senior White House official from the first term.
“He’s obsessed with the fact that Mr. Obama got it and he didn’t,” the ex-official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely.
