Trump shares post blasting Nobel committee after peace prize goes to another

Trump reshares criticism of Nobel Peace Prize committee and this year's laureate after being passed over

President Donald Trump reshared a post on his social media account attacking this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Navi Pillay, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Trump reposted content from an account called "Schoenlaw" on Truth Social at 9:25 a.m. Eastern time Friday (local time), hours after the Nobel Committee announced Pillay as this year's laureate.

The post said the committee had "irreparably disgraced itself" by awarding the prize to Pillay, a former UN official, and had "diminished the stature of what was once a great Nobel Peace Prize."

It described Pillay as someone who "openly hates America and Israel," accusing her of praising terrorists during her tenure, benefiting Hamas, and dismissing as fraudulent the probe that found reasonable grounds to conclude Israel had committed acts of genocide in Gaza. No supporting evidence was attached to the post.

The post went on to list what it called Trump's achievements — brokering and expanding the Abraham Accords, securing the return of hostages, working to end the Russia-Ukraine war, countering Iran, and attempting to rebuild Gaza — arguing these were precisely the kinds of efforts the Nobel Peace Prize was originally meant to honor.

Trump did not add his own comment to the repost. He also made no mention of the Nobel Peace Prize during his Columbus Day remarks at the White House East Room the same day.

Earlier, Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Wednesday that he had resolved eight wars, adding that it would be "a great embarrassment" to the Nobel Committee if it did not give him the prize.

Pillay, 85, is a South African jurist who served as a judge on the International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2008 and as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A UN independent commission she chaired released a report last September concluding there were reasonable grounds to believe Israeli authorities and military forces had committed acts of genocide in Gaza — a finding Israel denied. The Nobel Committee cited her efforts to advance peace and international law as the reason for the award.

The US government on the same day placed the ICC itself under sanctions. The measures, announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, freeze ICC assets within US jurisdiction and broadly prohibit US companies and individuals from transacting with the court, with a 180-day grace period for some activities. Previous US sanctions had targeted individual ICC judges and prosecutors rather than the institution as a whole.

The sanctions announcement came hours after Pillay's prize was revealed. Reuters had reported on Sept. 21, citing two sources, that the Trump administration had been preparing broad sanctions against the ICC and planned to announce them soon.

shee@heraldcorp.com