Fact check: Did Nobel Committee 'quietly remove' Trump from Peace Prize nominee list?

WASHINGTON, DC: In recent months, President Donald Trump has campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize while presenting himself as a "peacemaker." He has repeatedly claimed he ended "six wars" and has promoted his desire for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

Recently, a rumor circulated online claiming that the Nobel Committee "quietly removed" Trump’s name from the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee list. But is there any truth to this?

Claim: Nobel Committee ‘quietly removed’ Trump from Peace Prize nominee list

In mid-August, a rumor spread online claiming that the Norwegian Nobel Committee had "quietly removed" Trump’s name from the Peace Prize nominee list.

An image styled to look like a breaking-news alert went viral. It read: “BREAKING: Nobel Committee quietly removes Trump’s name from Peace Prize nominee list. Citing violations of international norms and ongoing criminal proceedings, the Committee stripped the nomination.”

The image even featured the Nobel Prize organization’s web address, nobelprize.org, to make it appear authentic. The claim spread widely on X, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram.

Fact Check: False as nominations are kept strictly confidential for 50 years under Nobel rules

This claim is false. The Norwegian Nobel Committee does not publish or confirm the names of Peace Prize nominees, and there is no public list from which anyone could be “removed.”

Under Nobel rules, nominations are kept confidential for 50 years. That means the public has no way of knowing who has been nominated in real time.

While individual nominators—such as politicians—sometimes announce their own submissions, those announcements come from the nominators themselves, not the Committee.

The Nobel Prize FAQ explains: “Contrary to common belief, there is no public list of the current year’s nominees.”

It also notes: “The Nobel Committee does not itself announce the names of nominees, neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves… These advanced surmises are either the product of sheer speculation or information released by the person or persons behind the nomination.”

Trump’s claim of ending ‘six wars’ is misleading

On Monday, August 18, Trump claimed he has ended “six wars” while stressing his desire for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

He has repeatedly cast himself as a peacemaker and promoted himself as deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. According to reports from Axios and The Guardian, Trump has supported ceasefires or partial agreements in several conflict zones, but most were fragile, temporary, or disputed in scope.

Speaking with reporters, Trump suggested that ending the Ukraine-Russia conflict would be his “seventh war” resolved, saying, “I thought this maybe would be the easiest one."

In July, he claimed he had “ended about one war per month” during his second term, though no independent evidence supports that figure.