Tag Archives: Ron Smith

Newsweek: Donald Trump Nobel Peace Prize comment raises eyebrows

Posted on by
Reply

Acomment suggesting President Donald Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize has raised eyebrows.

Social media users have reacted to Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, suggesting that the president has been overlooked for the prestigious award.

Why It Matters

Since 2018, Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which recognizes an individual or organization that has managed to “advance fellowship between nations,” multiple times but has not won.

Only four U.S. presidents have won the award, which is among the world’s most prominent international honors. President Barack Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, eight months into his presidency—a move Donald Trump Jr. described as “affirmative action.”

In the past few months, Trump and his allies have argued in support of the president’s worthiness as a candidate, citing foreign policy interventions his administration has been involved in.

What To Know

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, Witkoff said: “There’s only one thing I wish for—that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about. Your success is game-changing out in the world today, and I hope everybody wakes up and realizes that.”

Several campaign groups and figures responded negatively to Witkoff’s comments.

The X account Republicans Against Trump wrote, “Nobel Peace Prize for what exactly?”

Call to Activism, a progressive political account, called the applause that followed Witkoff’s comments “North Korea-style” and “terrifying.”

User Alok Bhatt told 91,000 followers, “It is astonishing to see the great American empire crumble before our eyes—brick by brick, piece by piece.”

User Ron Smith, a self-described “proud Democrat,” wrote, “Hard to believe this is not a North Korean cabinet.”

What People Are Saying

Mark Shanahan, who teaches American politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K., told Newsweek: “The Trump Cabinet is an exercise in obsequious forelock tugging where each member aims to outdo the rest in fawning flattery at the feet of the president. For all his talk, Donald Trump has done little to end the cruelly attritional war in Ukraine following Putin’s invasion, while he continues to support Netanyahu’s total war in Gaza.

“Nobel seeks to support fraternity between nations. With his America First policies, 47 is the antithesis of this.”

President Donald Trump complained about the prize on Truth Social in June: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a July news briefing: “It is well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Representative Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New York, wrote on X in June: “I’ve officially nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize twice! He has done more for world peace than any modern leader.”

What Happens Next

The deadline to nominate candidates for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize passed on January 31. Nobel Prize laureates are scheduled to be announced on October 10, with an award ceremony following on December 10 in Oslo, Norway.

Donald Trump Nobel Peace Prize comment raises eyebrows
Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, said Trump was “the single finest candidate” for the illustrious prize.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-nobel-peace-prize-steve-witkoff-2119969

Inquisitr: Kristi Noem Defends ‘Inhumane’ Conditions at Alligator Alcatraz in Latest Interview—Tells Immigrants to ‘Self Deport’

Posted on by
Reply

Kristi Noem and NBC’s Kristen Welker didn’t exactly have a friendly Sunday chat. Instead, their exchange on Meet the Press got heated fast over Florida’s controversial new migrant detention center, grimly nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

This sprawling facility in the Florida Everglades has space for nearly 4,000 people and is already holding about 900. It’s been under a harsh spotlight after Democratic lawmakers visited on Saturday. Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz didn’t mince words, calling it an “internment camp.” She and other Democrats claimed detainees were crammed “wall-to-wall” into cages, forced to drink water from sinks also used for the bathroom, and left sweltering in the brutal Florida heat.

“Our detention centers at the federal level are held to a higher standard than most local or state centers and even federal prisons. The standards are extremely high, now this is a state-run facility at Alligator Alcatraz —” she started before Welker jumped in.

“More than 30 people stuffed into a jail cell?” Welker shot back.

“I wish they would have said that back during the Biden administration and back when the Democrats were in the White House when they were piling people on top of each other on cement floors and they didn’t have two feet to move. They never did that, and that’s why this politics has to end,” she fired back.

Trying to clarify the setup, Noem added, “I wouldn’t call them jail cells, I would call them a facility where they are held and that are secure facilities, but are held to the highest levels of what the federal government requires for detention facilities –” before Welker cut in again.

“Democrats have called them cages,” Welker pressed.

Noem wasn’t backing down. She vowed to let cameras inside to document conditions firsthand, arguing it would show they’re better than facilities from Biden’s time. She even encouraged undocumented immigrants to avoid the centers altogether. Her advice? Self-deport, then come back legally.

Meanwhile, Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan was on CNN’s State of the Union making his own digs at Democrats for suddenly caring about detention conditions now that Trump is back in charge.

“You didn’t see them complaining about, under Biden administration, people being held in a border patrol parking lot surrounded by a fence and sweltering heat, they ignored four years of open borders, historic migrant deaths, historic Americans dying from fentanyl, historic numbers of women and children being sex trafficked,” Homan said.

All of this comes as Trump’s administration keeps doubling down on aggressive deportation policies, trying to lock down the southern border, and triggering fresh legal challenges in the process.

Because apparently in American politics, even the debate over cages comes with its own round of finger-pointing, whataboutism, and promises to invite in the cameras, just in case anyone wants to watch the argument unfold in 4K.

Kristi Noem Defends ‘Inhumane’ Conditions at Alligator Alcatraz in Latest Interview—Tells Immigrants to ‘Self Deport’
Kristi Noem defends the controversial Alligator Alcatraz detention center in a heated exchange with NBC’s Kristen Welker.