President Donald Trump was widely mocked after he published a Truth Social post in which he quoted Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who claimed this year's Nobel Prize in physics is by an extension a win for the Trump administration.
The Nobel Foundation awarded this year's physics prize to John Clarke (UC Berkeley), Michel H. Devoret (Yale and UC Santa Barbara), and John M. Martinis (UC Santa Barbara and Qolab) for “the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit."
In response to the news, Wright claimed that:
“Quantum computing, along with AI and Fusion, are the three signature Trump science efforts. Trump 47 racks up his first Nobel Prize!!”
Trump then shared this quote to his followers, basking in this praise.
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
Trump's post betrayed his latest attempt at Nobel glory—he's been obsessed with getting the Peace Prize.
A few weeks ago, 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.”
The White House accused the committee of political bias because Trump was not recognized after his administration’s role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire deal earlier in the week. Israel has since violated the terms of the deal.
However, Trump was barely eligible for the prize to begin with. Nominations for this year’s award closed on January 31, 2025, just days after Trump began his second term in office.
Now he's trying to take some credit for something he didn't have anything to do with whatsoever.
Clark, Devoret, and Martinis earned the prize for a breakthrough they achieved while working together at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1984 and 1985, decades before Trump’s first presidency began in 2017. The same lab recently laid off between 15 and 20 percent of its research staff following federal research funding cuts made under Trump.
Trump's post was even more shallow than anything he's ever shared related to the Peace Prize—and he was swiftly called out.
Someone might win a special Nobel Prize one day for investigating the depths of Trump's narcissism.
