President Donald Trump is still stewing about being passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize Trump has long chased to Venezuelan democracy advocate and opposition leader María Corina Machado on Friday.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung quickly lashed out at the announcement, accusing the committee of choosing “politics over peace.” Trump, for his part, tried to play it cool by boasting about Machado’s tribute to him.
“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me, and said ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.’ A really nice thing to do,” the president said on Friday.
But as the president departed for Tel Aviv, Israel on Sunday to tout the Gaza peace deal he helped broker, he seemed still hung up about missing out on the prize he had aggressively lobbied for by repeatedly claiming he’d “solved” multiple wars.
Trump, 79, shared a screenshot on Truth Social of an Oct. 9 post by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsing him for the prize.
“Give @realDonaldTrump the Nobel Peace Prize – he deserves it! 🏅” the prime minister’s official X account wrote alongside a bizarre AI-generated image showing him bestowing a golden medal on Trump.
Netanyahu, 75, shared the post just after Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal to end the war in Gaza based on Trump’s 20-point proposal. Trump had unveiled the agreement just hours before the Nobel prize winner was to be announced.
The prime minister’s fawning post was on the president’s mind when he spoke to reporters on Air Force One Sunday.
“[Netanyahu] just put me up for the Nobel prize,” he said. “So you know, I don’t know what it means with the Nobel prize but he put me up.”
Trump was then asked how he thought the Gaza peace deal “fits into” his legacy.
“This will be my eighth war that I’ve solved. I’m good at solving wars. I’m good at making peace and it’s an honor to do it. I’ve saved millions of lives,” he replied, before bringing up the Nobel prize again.
“Now in all fairness to the Nobel committee, it was for 2024. And this was picked for 2024. But there are those that say you could make an exception because a lot of things happened during ’25 that are done and complete and great.”
He added, “But I did this not for Nobel. I did this for saving lives.”
The president will address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and meet with hostage families on Monday, before traveling to Egypt for a summit meeting on the peace deal.
