Donald Trump vowed to be a peacemaker as president. The Nobel committee should honor him as one, a Southern California lawmaker argues.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Bonsall, whose district includes southwest Riverside County, is nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump “ideally represents what the Nobel Peace Prize should stand for,” Issa said in a Tuesday, March 4, news release.
“Not since Ronald Reagan has an American president better represented the national resolve of peace through strength or the fundamental case for a world without war.”
In a letter, to the Nobel committee in Norway Issa wrote that Trump, who returned to the White House in January after losing reelection in 2020, “continues to advance with a bold and realistic determination to end the bloody and brutal fighting between Russia and Ukraine and bring an end to this destructive conflict in a way that meets the moment.”
Trump “is also the architect and principal inspiration for the 2019 Abraham Accords — the most significant, successful, and durable Middle East peace agreements in generations — for which he has in no way received fair recognition for his efforts and accomplishments,” wrote Issa, who represents Murrieta, Temecula and northern San Diego County.
If chosen for the honor, Trump would be the fifth U.S. president to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter are the others, though Carter won the award after leaving office.
A committee of five people appointed by the Norwegian parliament chooses the annual peace prize winner, who is revealed in October and honored in December.
Trump campaigned last year promising to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts and end the 3-year-old Russia-Ukraine war.
But his reluctance to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin is under scrutiny, especially after a heated Oval Office meeting last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that raised questions among European allies about whether the U.S. can be counted on to stand up to Putin and others widely viewed as hostile to democracy.
Issa’s nomination is the latest attempt by congressional Republicans to honor Trump.
This week, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, introduced legislation to replace Benjamin Franklin’s image with Trump’s on the $100 bill.