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By James Bickerton
News Reporter
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On Friday, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner will be announced to the public, following their selection by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
President Donald Trump has received a number of nominations and support for receiving the prize, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the governments of Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Rwanda and Cambodia.
In late September, Trump told top American generals and admirals it would be “a big insult to our country” if he didn’t win the prize.
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The online betting website Polymarket currently has odds of 2.4 percent for Trump securing the award, down from 4.9 percent on Sunday as talks between Israel and Hamas over a Trump-endorsed Gaza peace plan continue.
But over the past couple of weeks, two posts have gone viral on social-media platform X, with one claiming the Nobel Committee had “removed Trump’s name” from this year’s Peace Prize Nominee list, and the other asserting he had been “disqualified from future Nobel Awards.”
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The Claim
On October 6, X account @mmpadellan, which used the name BrooklynDay_Defiant!, a self-styled “feminist” from New York with 1.3 million followers on the platform, shared a graphic which stated: “BREAKING: Nobel Committee quietly removes Trump’s name from Peace Prize nominee list.”
The graphic added: “Citing violations of international norms and ongoing criminal proceedings, the Committee stripped the nomination.”
Accompanying the graphic, BrooklynDad_Defiant! wrote: “They don't give Nobel Peace Prizes to jackasses like Trump who send the military to cities like Portland and Chicago with the intention of escalating tensions and inciting violence. The only thing Trump deserves is a front seat for his trial at the Hague.”
This post went viral, receiving over 4,100 shares, 12,000 likes and 247,000 views from other X users.
However, a context note, chosen by other X users, had been attached to the post, which said: “The nominations list is private, and not made public until 50 years after it is awarded. The meme said the removal was done 'quietly,' yet it also shows what appears to be a headline of an announcement on the Nobel website. Lead Stories found no such announcement.” Lead Stories is a media organization that specializes in fact-checking and online spoofs.
Separately, on September 26, an X user called “DonaldFrump,” with the handle of @torontobaddy, shared a screenshot of what appeared to be an Associated Press news release from the previous day titled “NPC [Nobel Prize Committee] BARRS TRUMP ACCOLADE.”
The screenshot read: “In an unprecedented move that has world leaders praising the prestigious organization, the Nobel Prize committee announced today that Donald J. Trump is permanently disqualified from future awards after his controversial comments in his UN speech on Tuesday, Sept. 23 2025 as well as his decision to rename the U.S. Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” which the committee deemed a “grace breach of historical gravitas and semantic decorum."
“The committee’s terse statement, issued under embargo until now, asserted that ‘the integrity of the Nobel tradition cannot coexist with a willful rebranding of global defense institutions into instruments of infringerment,’ and added that even past laurels remain untouched—but ‘moving forward, no Prizes shall be awarded.’ The decision, the committee said, is final.”
During Trump’s UN address on September 23, the president controversially argued Europe was being ruined by a “double-tailed monster” of mass immigration and green policies.
This post was later deleted, as was X account @torontobaddy. However, according to internet archive website archive.today, before this happened, the post went viral, receiving over 812,000 views and 28,000 likes.
Newsweek contacted BrooklynDad_Defiant! for comment via their website and email on Wednesday outside of regular office hours.
The Facts
When contacted by Newsweek, the Norwegian Nobel Institute’s head of media communications unequivocally denied Trump had been removed from this year’s list of nominees. They said: “The Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn't make this kind of statements and never disqualified a proposed candidate.
“There is no public list of nominees. The Nobel Committee does not disclose the names of nominees—neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves. Occasionally, names appear in the press. Such reports are either pure speculation or information released by the nominators.
“The names of both nominators and nominees must remain confidential for 50 years, and can only be revealed at the beginning of the year marking the 50th anniversary of the prize in question.”
Speaking to Newsweek, an AP spokesperson confirmed the screenshot shared by DonaldFrump "is not an AP story."
There are no credible media reports that Trump has been removed from this year’s Nobel Peace Prize list, nor that he has been barred from being nominated going forward. As such BrooklynDad_Defiant!’s viral post is incorrect, and the supposed AP press release published by @torontobaddy was a forgery, and @torontobaddy has since had their account deleted.
The deadline for nominations for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize closed on January 31, and members of the committee were entitled to add more nominees to the list of 338 candidates during their first meeting on February 28, a little over a month into Trump's second term. The list of nominees includes 244 individuals and 94 organizations, according to a press release from the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
The Ruling
False.
There is no credible evidence that Trump has been removed from the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee list, or barred from future years, and this has been emphatically denied by the Nobel Committee.
Update, 10/08/2025, 12:27 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information
Update, 10/08/2025, 2:00 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from the Associated Press
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