The Real Reason Donald Trump Never Won A Nobel Peace Prize
If you know anything about former President Donald Trump, you know that he loves bragging about his accomplishments. Donald Trump earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007, he was Time's "Person of the Year" cover star in 2016, he is even in the WWE Hall of Fame.
"I can only say this: My whole life has been about winning. My whole life," Donald Trump told The Washington Post in 2016. "My life has been about victories. I've won a lot. I win a lot. I win — when I do something, I win. And even in sports, I always won. I was always a good athlete. And I always won," Trump continued. "In golf, I've won many club championships. Many, many club championships. And I have people that can play golf great, but they can't win under pressure. So I've always won."
So clearly, he wins a lot, but what about the countless awards he didn't win? Everyone knows that Trump is not too happy about his show, "The Apprentice," never winning an Emmy, despite being nominated numerous times. Many people also know that Trump is upset that former President Barack Obama has a Nobel Peace Prize, but not him. "They gave one to Obama immediately ... and he had no idea why he got it," Trump complained, per The Guardian. However, Trump thought his luck was about to change, hoping to finally win the award in 2020 after being snubbed in 2018. That didn't happen.
Trump was nominated twice, but lost
Donald Trump did not win the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize and has never won any of the times he's been nominated, even though he falsely claimed he did back in 2020, per The Wrap. Trump was nominated twice for the prize, once in 2018 and again in 2020, by far-right Norwegian politician, Christian Tybring-Gjedde. "For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees," Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News (via BBC). Though he claims to not be a big Trump supporter, Tybring-Gjedde believes that "The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts — not on the way he behaves sometimes."
Trump probably agrees with Tybring-Gjedde, since he believes that the Nobel Prize selection process is rigged, per Politico, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support that. As much as Trump and his supporters do not believe in the sanctity of the Nobel Peace Prize selection, they feel it is an honor to be nominated, nevertheless.
"This is a hard-earned and well-deserved honor for this president," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, per BBC. "Career politicians merely talk about the kind of results that this president has achieved on the world stage."
Trump didn't get a 'unanimous or majority vote'
Even if Trump thinks the selection process is rigged, there actually is a very simple, yet strategic way the Nobel committee chooses its winner(s), according to their website.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee considers all nominees, then creates a "short list" of five to 20 people to advance for the prize. The Committee then does background research with their advisors to find out more information about the candidates, and then makes more cuts from there. After they finish narrowing it down to their final group, the committee has to reach a unanimous vote. However, if they can't make a unanimous decision by the beginning of October, they hold a vote, and the nominee with the most votes wins. Donald Trump didn't get a unanimous or majority vote, so he missed out on the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize award.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee ultimately awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia.