US President Donald Trump delivered a long, scathing speech overnight about the decision to award South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay the Nobel Peace Prize. In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the decision an “indelible stain on Norway,” while dismissing Pillay’s career and touting his own diplomatic record. “I don’t know anything about this woman, nor does anyone else! In fact, as far as I know, no one has heard of her, other than the fact that she, very obviously, hates Israel,” he wrote, adding, “I don’t know what the woman has done.” He went on to claim that he “should have won eight Nobel Peace Prizes” for having “solved eight wars” and said he would soon “solve or win two more,” pointing to the wars in Iran and Ukraine. Trump listed conflicts he said he had “solved” as Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Israel and Hamas. Increasingly furious, Trump continued to detail what he perceived as achievements before renewing his attack on Pillay, whom he described as a “liberal person who works at the United Nations.” “The Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and enemies of civilization!” he concluded. The post came after the president had already criticized the award decision while speaking at a campaign rally in Syracuse, New York, on Friday, calling it “disgraceful and disgraceful.” Pillay Born in Durban, on the east coast of South Africa, Pillay would become United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2008, a position she held until 2014. Early in her career, she worked as a defense lawyer for anti-apartheid activists, helping to establish the rights of prisoners on Robben Island. She then served as an acting judge at the High Court of South Africa and as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She was also appointed judge of the International Criminal Court in 2003, and served in the Appeals Chamber until 2008. In 2025, while serving as chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, Pillay accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. Upon learning that he had won the Peace Prize on Friday, Pillay seemed unable to resist taking a playful jab at Trump. “If you clap a little more, I can share this award with Trump,” she said, in an apparent nod to last year’s winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, as she presented her award to the US president. US sanctions on ICC It comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Friday that the US would sanction the International Criminal Court, which Washington has repeatedly accused of “politicized actions” and “attacking Israel”. “We will prohibit transactions with this dishonest court, cutting off its resources and crippling its ability to operate against us,” Rubio said in a video speech shared on social media. “Our message is clear: the United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this false ICC,” he added.
