California Governor Gavin Newsom mocked President Donald Trump with a photo highlighting the ridiculousness of the State Department's announcement this week that the U.S. Institute of Peace in downtown Washington, D.C., will now be known as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.
The update came just days before Trump welcomed the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Washington for the formal signing of a U.S.-brokered economic and peace agreement finalized earlier this year.
Visitors to the institute’s website are now directed to watch for announcements or a livestream of the official signing ceremony. Notably, the notice still identifies the organization by its original name, the “United States Institute of Peace.”
Trump's rapid response team also circulated an image showing Trump’s name emblazoned in large silver lettering above the building’s existing “United States Institute of Peace” sign.
You can see the post below.
@RapidResponse47/X
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement that the former Institute of Peace is "both beautifully and aptly named after a President who ended eight wars in less than a year" and "will stand as a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability."
However, that claim is bogus—and reflects Trump's obsession with winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
In October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said "it's well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize," claiming that he “has brokered, on average, one peace deal or ceasefire per month,” and pointing to mediations he led between India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, and Egypt and Ethiopia, among others.
Notably, Leavitt did not address the war in Ukraine, despite Trump’s frequent promises to bring it to an end on his first day in office, nor did she mention the genocide in Gaza amid heightened concerns about the U.S. supplying arms to Israel. She also failed to mention that Trump often claims credit for settling conflicts he had nothing to do with.
And Newsom mocked the absurdity of renaming the Institute after a man who hasn't contributed to world peace at all—let's not forget the recent bombings of alleged drug boats in the Caribbean—by sharing an image of the institute named the:
"KFC Institute for Veganism"
You can see Newsom's post below.
@GovPressOffice/X
Many felt Newsom's response said it all.
Well played, Governor.
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