South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was criticized for offering fawning praise for President Donald Trump during a Fox News appearance in which he suggested the Nobel Peace Prize should be renamed the "Trump Prize" in the president's honor.
Graham made the comment while discussing Trump’s push for additional Middle Eastern countries to join the Abraham Accords as part of broader efforts to end the war with Iran. Graham argued that, if Trump succeeds in expanding the accords and securing a wider regional peace deal, the Nobel Peace Prize should effectively become the “Trump Prize.”
He said:
“If he [Trump] can pull this off, if he can get Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam for the entire world, to recognize the Jewish state Israel, he’ll have ended the Arab-Israeli conflict that’s been going on for thousands of years. They should change the Nobel Prize to the Trump Prize.”
“If he can do that—and I think he can—it’s the biggest change in the modern history and in the ancient history of the mid-east, where the Arabs and the Jews live together, where it becomes a center of power economically, not a powder keg.”
“And once you put Iran in a box, and he’s going to do that, we’re going to have peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Nobody thought that was possible. I believe it’s possible. And there’s one guy can do it: Donald Trump."
You can hear what Graham said in the video below.
Graham's remarks make no sense given the fact that Trump hasn't done anything for world peace whatsoever.
In December, he was presented with FIFA's inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize,” a gold medal and oversized trophy that, notably, arrived just months after he failed to secure a Nobel Peace Prize—and just after the U.S. Justice Department suddenly announced that it was dropping an international soccer bribery case.
The following month, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado faced heavy criticism after she gave her Nobel prize to Trump despite the Nobel Committee's insistence that prizes can't be transferred. Machado ignored the pushback and went to Washington anyway, saying she had done so "as a recognition for his [Trump's] unique commitment with our freedom."
These "recognitions" are as tone-deaf as you could possibly get considering the nation is in the throes of an affordability crisis, Trump is at the center of the Epstein files scandal, and his administration recently launched a war with Iran that has caused a surge in gas prices.
The war has caused heavy casualties across the region, with thousands killed on multiple fronts. It certainly doesn't help that Trump has threatened to bomb Iran "into the stone age" and made genocidal threats about ending an "entire civilization" that critics and legal scholars say amount to threatening war crimes.
No one was impressed by Graham's groveling or his suggestion that the Nobel Peace Prize become yet another narcissistic exercise for a man obsessed with putting his name and likeness on things.
We wonder just what "peace" actually means to Graham considering the major role he's played in kicking off the Trump administration's war in Iran in the first place.
Graham previously urged Middle Eastern partners to do more to support the U.S. war effort, telling countries such as Saudi Arabia to “up your game.” He also criticized Spain after its leadership strongly opposed the attacks on Iran. Graham said Spain had “lost your way,” and called on the U.S. to cut ties with the country and withdraw its military air base from Spanish territory.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Graham had traveled repeatedly to Israel to meet privately with Israeli intelligence officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, advising him on how to persuade Trump to join attacks on Iran. Lawmakers in both parties also believe Graham helped convince Trump to authorize the bombing campaign.
