Astonishingly, President Donald Trump’s third nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize is legit. In fact, he’s been put forth for the 2021 prize thrice. To put things in perspective, his amigo Russian President Vladimir Putin was also nominated, as was Democratic Presidential hopeful Joe Biden. Members of national assemblies and governments of sovereign states, current heads of state, university professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology, and religion are all able to nominate people or organizations for the prize. There’s not vetting for the nominations so absolutely anyone can be put forward for the prize. Most nominees won’t make the final shortlist.
In 2019, Trump said he thinks he’ll get “a Nobel Prize for a lot of things,” but only “if they gave it out fairly, which they don’t.” He has said he has no idea why former President Barack Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. In 2018, Trump’s government reportedly asked Japan’s Prime Minister to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Most recently, Australian law professor David Flint has nominated Trump for the “Trump Doctrine” against endless wars and cited Trump’s approach to Middle East peace with the Abraham Accord, the first agreement between Israel and a major Arab country since 1994. Flint called the doctrine extraordinary like “so many things that Donald Trump does.” He went on to say that Trump is “producing peace in the world in a way which none of his predecessors did. He fully deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.” We’re not sure where Flint gets his news—perhaps Australia also has an ongoing problem with fake news.
Christian Tybring-Gjedde, of Norway’s NATO delegation, also gave Trump the courtesy of a nomination for the U.S. president’s role in the peace deal between Israel and the UAE. Magnus Jacobsson, of the Swedish parliament, also nominated Trump and the US government for a peace deal between Serbia and Kosovo.