‘Obama got it, and he didn’t do anything’: Trump made his Nobel Peace Prize case in the Oval Office, saying he ‘settled eight wars’

Trump told reporters inside the Oval Office that the Nobel committee would be doing itself “a great discredit” by passing him over for this year’s Peace Prize, according to The Statesman. “It is about that time,” he said of the announcement. “I settled eight wars,” he said, adding that he might not win. “But, whether I get it or not, I have done far more,” he said.

He also named former President Barack Obama, winner in 2009, saying, “Obama got it, and he didn’t do anything.” In the same remarks he mentioned Venezuela’s María Corina Machado, last year’s laureate, who handed him her Nobel medal at the White House in January. Machado, an opposition leader in Venezuela, took the 2025 award. The medal and the title are separate, and the honor stays with the winner.

Two days later, on October 9, the Nobel committee in Norway named South African jurist Navi Pillay the winner, citing her efforts to promote peace and international law. The 85-year-old, a former United Nations human rights chief, is the fifth South African to receive the prize. The committee had 287 candidates to consider this year, made up of 208 individuals and 79 organizations.

Pillay joked about sharing it with Trump

Speaking in Nuremberg, Germany, Pillay told applauding colleagues, “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” and the line drew laughter, according to Forbes. She was inside the courtroom where Nazi leaders were tried after World War II when she learned of the award, and she dedicated it to survivors of international crimes.

Her career began with defending anti-apartheid activists and later included judgeships at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She led the UN human rights office from 2008 to 2014 and currently serves as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice.

Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said the award is “definitely a message to those who are undermining the international system and institutions,” CBS News reports. He said the system of international law is “under tremendous pressure.” Frydnes also described her commitment to universal legal principles and her “firm moral compass” as constants across a long career. He added that the committee could not immediately reach her and asked her to pick up if a Norwegian number called.

After the announcement, Trump responded in a Truth Social post. “I know nothing about this woman, and neither does anyone else!” he wrote, describing the winner as “a liberal person who works at the United Nations.” He said he “should have won 8 Nobel Peace Prizes” and called the decision “an indelible stain on Norway.”

The eight conflicts he says he settled are Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Israel and Hamas. Pillay’s joke about sharing the prize came on the day of the announcement, before that post.

Hours after the prize was announced, the United States imposed new sanctions on the International Criminal Court, where Pillay served as a judge.