The Dictatorship
Trump’s efforts to secure a Nobel Peace Prize are Orwellian
This summer, President Donald Trump is rolling out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin and approving of weapon sales to Israel as it commits genocide. He’s also squeezing in time to lobby aggressively for the Nobel Peace Prize.
NBC News reports that “Trump and his aides are intensifying a public campaign to snag the award, citing a string of peace deals while making a case that snubbing him again would be an injustice.” According to NBC News, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said, unprompted, at three out of her four press briefings in July that Trump deserves the prize. In fact, she’s arguing it’s overdue: “It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said at one presser. Trump has also “posted about the prize a total of seven times on his social media site since his second term began, six of them in June and July,” NBC News reports.
Trump’s foreign policy has often undermined global ‘fraternity,’ not fostered it.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a five-member body appointed by Norway’s parliament. Trump has reportedly tried to influence the group through talks with the country’s government. A Norwegian news outlet reported Thursday that Trump said that he wanted the Nobel Peace Prize during a July call with Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg to discuss tariffs. (According to NBC News, a White House official “said that the president and Stoltenberg did speak, but could not say that the conversation was focused on the prize. Stoltenberg confirmed in a statement that he spoke to Trump about tariffs but would not go into further details of the call.”)
Trump’s Nobel Prize campaign — and his conviction that he is entitled to one — is of course absurd. Alfred Nobel called in his will for the prize to be awarded to individuals “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” How would Trump fit the bill?
There is some truth to the Trump administration’s claim that it has played a diplomatic role in mediating the end of conflict between some nations, including between India and Pakistan and between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. However in the case of India and Pakistan, India objects to Trump’s claim that he was responsible for the May ceasefire between India and Pakistan; the Indian government describes the resolution as something that was brokered bilaterally between only India and Pakistan, and has downplayed Trump’s role. And in the case of Rwanda and the DRC, Qatar also played a critical role that the Trump administration has conveniently left out of its narrative.
Even granting that the Trump administration has played a role in conflict resolution between some countries, the general spirit of Trump’s foreign policy has often undermined global “fraternity,” not fostered it. Under the banner of “America First,” Trump has shattered the bonds of economic cooperation by launching global trade wars, has reneged on pivotal agreements with our neighbors, and turned long-standing allies in Europe into rivals.
On a particularly surreal note, one of the mediation agreements that the Trump administration lists in its case for Trump as a “president of peace” is the recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Somehow Trump fails to mention that that ceasefire came after the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran. Moreover, those attacks were carried out during negotiations to secure a diplomatic agreement that would’ve brought more safety to the Middle East and served the end of nuclear nonproliferation. A nuclear deal with Iran now remains further from reach than ever.
And on two of the biggest U.S. foreign policy issues of the day, Trump should not be asking for a pat on the back. He should be asking for forgiveness. He has supported Israel as it has killed civilians en masse in Gaza and effectively encouraged its ethnic cleansing project by talking about turning Gaza into an international beach resort. And while Trump’s efforts to help end Russia’s war on Ukraine is, in the abstract, a good thing, his extraordinary deference toward Russia during negotiations reflects a pursuit of an imperialistic, autocrat-friendly “peace” in the global order.
“Trump’s desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize has become something of a joke in foreign capitals,” a former British diplomat told NBC News. “His claims to Canada, Panama, Greenland, etc., as well as tariff wars and the assaults on America’s democratic institutions, incline governments in the opposite direction.”
Trump’s demand for a Nobel Peace Prize while causing global chaos and backing imperialism is yet another stroke of Orwellian audacity from our president. I hope the committee does not repeat its past mistake of pre-emptively awarding one to a U.S. president in an ill-conceived attempt at encouraging good behavior. At a time of rampant corruption and authoritarianism, it’s important for global institutions to protect their credibility and do what they can to stand for the idea of a truly peaceful and just world order.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Blue Light News, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter here.
The Dictatorship
President Trump spoke to Live Nation CEO before antitrust case was settled, company lawyers reveal
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump spoke personally with the chief executive of Live Nation in the weeks before the Justice Department abruptly settled its longstanding antitrust lawsuit against the entertainment giant and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, the company revealed in a court filing.
Lawyers for Live Nation told the court on Monday that Trump and the company’s CEO, Michael Rapino, spoke about the antitrust lawsuit in February, but didn’t discuss “substantive terms” of any potential settlement.
They also said that White House lawyers were involved in some of the numerous in-person meetings, videoconferences, telephone calls and written communications between the company and the Justice Department in February and March.
Just days into the March trial, the Justice Department announced a settlement that most states refused to join, saying it did not go far enough to curb the company’s dominance over concert venues and ticketing for live events though Ticketmaster.
The trial continued, and a jury concluded several weeks later that the company was a monopoly that cost concertgoers and sports fans.
The White House declined to comment on Live Nation’s disclosure, referring questions to the Justice Department, which didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The revelation comes as the Justice Department has faced criticism that its independence has been threatened by substantial oversight or interference from the White House and the president.
The Justice Department and dozens of states originally teamed up to bring the antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation.
Among other things, the jury in New York found Ticketmaster’s anticompetitive practices led to people in 22 states paying an extra $1.72 per ticket, which the judge could order the companies to pay back.
State attorneys general who sued Live Nation said the verdict could potentially lead to lower ticket prices for music fans.
The federal government’s settlement deal included a cap on service fees at some amphitheaters, plus some new ticket-selling options for promoters and venues — potentially allowing, but not requiring, them to open doors to Ticketmaster competitors such as SeatGeek or AXS.
In April, Live Nation said in a statement that the verdict “is not the last word on this matter.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a financial windfall to American farmers.
But the Iranians deny it. And in the absence of more details, sanctions experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the escrow accounts where they’ve been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.
A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a 60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key issues. The memorandum of understanding also promised to unfreeze Iranian assets.
Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the president cited for going to war with Iran on Feb. 28, including curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Lashing back at critics Tuesday on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed by Iran.’’
Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in Switzerland, and Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.
But the Iranians deny that’s part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by Washington.
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.
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Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
A U.S. official dismissed the contradiction, asserting that Iranian leaders were speaking to their domestic audience. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other trade partners on food.
Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable’’ items such as food and medicine.
On Monday, the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21. It did not mention any escrow accounts.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying U.S. agricultural products.”
Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said it’s unclear what the new U.S.-Iran agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.
Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm products?
“Well, we can try!’’ Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever.”
Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could sanction them as well.
But it’s rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat national security issues as a cash grab.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
Wednesday marks four years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Dobbs decisionwhich effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. On “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski explained how the ruling set off a domino effect across the United States, affecting not just abortion-related care, but also altering “the state of women’s healthcare as a whole.”
As Brzezinski noted, states across the country have enacted harsher abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, with 13 outright banning the procedure with very limited exceptions. This has created a climate of fear among those who treat pregnant patients, with many healthcare providers worrying that any care involving an abortion could violate the law, even when the mother’s health is at risk.
“We are talking about people dying when they’re miscarrying because doctors are too afraid to intervene and save their lives,” Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent for The Nation, told MS NOW.
Brzezinski said the laws have effectively limited women’s “access to lifesaving healthcare.”
The MS NOW host reflected on some high-profile stories of pregnant women who faced delayed care in states with near-total abortion bans, noting “the numbers of cases that we’ve covered here on the show of women who have had their lives threatened, have been forced to give birth to dying or dead babies, and then, by the way, denied the access to ever create life again, because they became sterilized in the process.”
“There’s an image I can’t get out of my head,” Brzezinski added, before sharing reporting from ProPublica about Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother who died in Texas in 2023 after not receiving timely care for a miscarriage.
“For months afterward, Porsha’s 3-year-old son would chase after women who looked like her on the street, shouting, ‘That’s Mommy!’” Brzezinski said. “That’s the detail I can’t forget. I can’t stop imagining that little boy chasing after strangers on the street. And that story repeats itself.”
You can watch Brzezinski’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
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