Donald Trump, purveyor of peace? According to reports, the Republican presidential hopeful is one among hundreds who have been nominated as potential recipients of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel watcher Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Norway, told French media that Trump, 69, is being nominated for “his vigorous peace through strength ideology, used as a threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, ISIS, nuclear Iran and Communist China.”
Other surprising Nobel Prize nominations in the past have included Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Putin and even Adolf Hitler.
A nomination does not guarantee a win, of course. Of the hundreds of candidates who are named each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee sifts through the names and narrows the pool down to a final winner. (The 2015 prize went to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet.)
Other nominees for this year include the Greek islanders who helped refugees, Pope Francis and a champion for ISIS rape victims.
On Wednesday, February 3, Trump aired his grievances about Monday night’s Republican Iowa caucus via Twitter, calling the winner, Senator Ted Cruz, out on “fraud.”
“Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified,” wrote the business mogul, who finished in second place.
A representative for Cruz responded by letting the media know just how little attention their camp is paying to Trump’s comment.
“Reality just hit the reality star — he lost Iowa and now nobody is talking bout him, so he’s popping off on Twitter,” Cruz’s communication director, Rick Tyler, told CNN.
“There are support groups for Twitter addiction. Perhaps he should find his local chapter,” Tyler said.
