Trump Blasts New Nobel Prize Winner, Says 80-Year-Old Florida Man Should Have Won Instead

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to Navi Pillay, a South African judge and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.” President Donald Trump, who turned 80 in June and listed Florida as his residence in a 2019 filing, spent Friday night arguing the prize should have gone to him.

Who Navi Pillay Is

The Nobel Institute says Pillay was born into a family of Indian Tamil origin under apartheid in Durban, South Africa, and became a lawyer and legal pioneer, “confronting deep structural discrimination, segregation and exclusion.” The Nobel Institute notes that a thread runs from her early work representing Nelson Mandela to “her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time.” Those cases include her service as a judge on the International Criminal Court.

A Rally in Syracuse, Then a Late-Night Post

At a Friday night rally in Syracuse, New York, Trump complained at length about losing, saying, according to Mediaite, “this is a stain on the country of Norway.”

He followed with a late night Truth Social post. In it, Trump wrote that Pillay won “over the Great United States of America, whose Representative, ME, settled eight Wars, and many other things. I know nothing about this woman, and neither does anyone else!”

Trump notes that “no one ever heard of her other than the fact that she, very obviously, hates Israel.”

Trump then raised his count. “In actuality, I should have won 8 Nobel Peace Prizes, not just 1,” Donald J. Trump wrote.

The “1” refers to a medal. Floridian Press reports that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a recipient of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, privately gave Trump her medal in early 2026 as she asked for U.S. support for democracy in Venezuela. Trump is not a Nobel recipient.

Trump’s Case, in His Own Words

Everything in this section is his account. We are reporting what he said and are not verifying it. Donald J. Trump named the eight Wars he says he ended:

• Cambodia and Thailand
• Kosovo and Serbia
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda
• Pakistan and India
• Israel and Iran
• Egypt and Ethiopia
• Armenia and Azerbaijan
• Israel and Hamas

He said he is close to ended or winning two additional conflicts.

Donald J. Trump wrote that he got back all the hostages in Israel, “including the final 28, both living and dead,” and worked with Hamas to do it. Trump also claimed he secured the return of more than 900 political prisoners from Eastern Europe and brought 196 hostages home without paying a ransom. Trump said he got NATO countries to raise spending from 2% to 5% of GDP. He also credited himself with removing the Venezuelan leader, stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and preventing conflicts in Asia.

Donald J. Trump quoted Machado as saying he “deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than any person that has ever received it,” then notes: “I agree!”

United Nations Thread Running Through His Complaint

Donald J. Trump wrote that the prize went to “a liberal person who works at the United Nations, who nobody has ever heard of.” In the same post, he said that in all of the wars he ended, he never spoke to the United Nations, and “they were of no help.”

The woman he describes as working at the United Nations spent six years as its High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Trump closed: “This is an indelible stain on Norway, one that will never be forgotten. The Nobel “Peace” Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of Radical Ideologues who are Anti-Democracy, and Enemies of Civilization!”

A Repost From Another Account

Trump also reshared a post from the account Schoenlaw, via Truth Social, which said the committee “shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the [United Nations’] Navi Pillay.” Those words were written by the Schoenlaw account. Trump reshared them.

Pillay Responds

Navi Pillay told an audience: “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”

Pillay also said political leaders have a legal responsibility to protect human rights and refrain from war.

New Sanctions on the Court She Once Served

Hours after the award, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced further sanctions, saying: “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate. Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”

Pillay is a former judge of that court. No official connected the sanctions to the award or to her. Reporting describes them as part of a campaign against the court that has been running for months. We are reporting the sequence of events and have no evidence of a direct link.

Where Things Stand

Pillay holds the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Trump says the committee has discredited itself. The U.S. has tightened sanctions on the court where Pillay once served; watch for more.

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