FactCheck.org Falsely Claims Trump is Wrong on Peace Prize

Image: PHR.org

In a Robert Farley piece titled "Trump’s Nobel Nonsense", FactCheck.org ("FCO") falsely presents media coverage, makes a false claim of Trump's statement based on a relative opinion and interpretation, and completely misquotes President Donald Trump subsequently falsely calling his statement premature.

FactCheck.org spends several paragraphs denouncing the importance of the nomination and criticizes Trump and others for mentioning it, however this may not have been the intention. They state, not once, but twice in the article, that:

Nominations for a Nobel Peace Prize can be made by any one of perhaps hundreds of thousands of eligible people

The author additionally notes a standard disclaimer on the Nobel website stating "not an endorsement or extended honour to imply affiliation with the Nobel Peace Prize.".

The fact is that several organizations and individuals tour nominations, specifically when they are nominated more than once.

FCO is referring to the 2020 nomination, however, at the time of this writing Trump has been nominated for the years of 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. More than any other US President in history.

Dwight Eisenhower was nominated four times, in 1955, 1957, 1960, and 1963.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had three nominations in 1934, 1938, and 1939.

The New York Times contests the 2018 Trump nomination claiming it was fraudulent, however, it will be impossible to know for certain until 2068 given the 50 year non-disclosure policy of the Nobel Foundation.

They based this determination off of a statement from Olav Njolstad of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, however, what Olav Njolstad actually said was:

We have good reason to believe that a nomination we received concerning Trump has been falsified.

This refers to one nomination, it was not definitively stated one way or another, and Trump has been nominated multiple times for multiple years.

Whereas some of the foregoing may sound opinion based as to FCO's intentions, they state with clarity at the top of the article that:

Trump has been nominated, but that’s not the “big thing” he makes it out to be.

As such, stating they denounce the nominations importance is consistent with their own words.

Trump Wrong About coverage

The article claims Trump falsely claims the the media ignored his nomination while reported the Obama nomination.

They state the FoxNews did indeed report the nomination as well as some print media and that Obama's nomination did not receive any coverage, claiming "The media attention for Obama came after he won the Nobel Peace Prize. "

The former appears insufficient to make the claim that Trump was "wrong". First, the article confirms that the "mainstream media" did not pick up the story.

Secondly, It would be plausible to believe Trump was referring to the "mainstream media" and in that statement, did not insinuate FoxNews is part of that group. Notably, FoxNews themselves do not consider themselves part of mainstream media which is a shared opinion of millions of people.

In regards to the latter, FCO claims:

We searched the Nexis news database and could find only two stories that mentioned Obama’s nomination.

Both being from the Associated press.

We didn't go to that extent because simply using Google returned pages of articles, for example the following:

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5
Article 6

This doesn't include the cable news, network news, radio, and other outlets who also reported the story and some were critical of the nomination given the fact that Obama was nominated only 11 days after taking office.

The media attention after-the-fact, was predominant criticism regarding Obama winning the award having not had time to accomplish anything worthy of such an award in 11 days and won the award after only 9 months in office.

Moreover, FactCheck.org claims is party premised by it's interpretation of what Donald Trump considers a "big story" and defines "story" as media coverage whereas Trump could have meant one story, or a false story.

Either way, this is a relative opinion period. It's also one based on its own presumed definition of what Trump intended.

The Obama nomination was reported, the mainstream media did not report the Trump nomination, and the author bases analysis on relative opinions in the assessment that Trump is wrong.

Conflated Nomination with Winning

The article criticizes Trump for "repeatedly conflated winning a Nobel Peace Prize with being nominated for one". However, they provide no evidence of Trump doing this and we could not find one time where Trump conflated the two or even mentioned the two in the same paragraph.

The article appears to insinuate that referring to the media coverage of Obama's win and Trump's nomination is conflating the two.

One very key element that the article fails to mention is that even if we side with FactCheck.org and pretend we didn't see the two articles they themselves found, the notable aspect of the media coverage even after Obama won the prize was related to the nomination itself.

Almost every single article, if not all of them, comments on, and/or criticizes the fact that Obama was nominated only 11 days after taking office noting that its conceivable that within 9 months, an accomplishment worthy of the award is plausible, however, 11 days is more improbable.

Premature Honor

The article makes another false statement ending the article with:

We also don’t mean to diminish Trump’s accomplishments in the Middle East or with Kosovo and Serbia, but it is premature for Trump to say he is “being honored” with the award.

This is not at all what Trump said. He did not even use the words they quoted ("being honored"). What was actually stated was Trump:

...is honored to be considered by the Nobel Committee

Honored to be considered. Not honored for the nomination, not honored for the award, and not honored for any other reason outside of the mere consideration of the committee.

Summary

FatCheck.org makes several false claims in the article and as such, the article is a false claim of a false claim.

Notably, the article is not without value. FCO could have justified the argument of a false claim had they simply pointed out the actual misleading information.

Trump insinuates that Obama is in some way praised while he was ignored. However, the predominate message in most articles that covered the Obama nomination and/or win of the Nobel Peace prize in 2009 was not exactly positive and point out the lack of accomplishment deserving of the win and impossibility of activity worthy of the nomination 11 days after taking office.

In fact only 4 executive orders had even been published that anyone would have even known about.