Syracuse – US President Donald Trump slammed the “disgraceful” Nobel Peace Prize choice on Friday as leaving an “indelible stain” on Norway, arguing that the award should have gone to him.
South African judge and human rights champion Navi Pillay won the prestigious prize on Friday in recognition of her work against war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But Trump labelled the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s choice as “a disgraceful and embarrassing decision”, telling a rally of his supporters in Syracuse, New York he had “never heard of” Pillay.
“I never heard of this particular person, but congratulations anyway,” he said.
“The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t.”
#NEW Rubio announces new sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay wins Nobel Peace Prize.
“President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans,” he said in a statement.
But, remember what Trump said abut Rubio’s push to dismantle the ICC: “He’s not trying to defend me. He’s trying to defend Bibi(Netanyahu) and various other people, not me.”
— Rabia İclal Turan (@iclalturan) October 9, 2026
He said the choice of Pillay as laureate left “an indelible stain on the country of Norway”.
Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has made no secret of his desire to win the Nobel Peace prize.
But his war against Iran, his territorial expansion ambitions as in Greenland, his hard line on migrants, and his attacks on multilateralism and the media disqualified him, according to experts in Oslo speaking before Pillay was announced as laureate.
The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of $1.2 million.
“The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilisation,” Trump said.
Pillay had joked about sharing her prize with Trump, telling a crowd who applauded her after the announcement of the award: “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a leading jurist and former U.N. human rights chief.
Upon hearing the news, Pillay joked, “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”
https://t.co/RWitnme3mJ https://t.co/XC8NgQZrAa— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 9, 2026
The jibe appeared to be in reference to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who gave her Nobel gold medal to Trump after winning the prize last year.
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Source: AFP
