Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would nominate President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize if he managed to pull off an extremely challenging feat.
“I would not be [meeting with Putin], but I think we have to deal with the reality that we have,” she said.
Clinton said she was aware of Trump’s fixation with getting the Nobel Peace Prize and even went as far as to say she would nominate her 2016 presidential election rival for the award if he managed to secure a fair deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Clinton said the Alaska summit may be an opportunity for Trump to make it clear to Putin “that there must be a ceasefire, there will be no exchange of territory [between Russia and Ukraine], and that, over a period of time, Putin should be actually withdrawing from the territory he seized in order to demonstrate his good faith efforts, let us say, not to threaten European security.”
“If President Trump were the architect of that, I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, because my goal here is to not allow capitulation to Putin aided and abetted by the United States,” she told co-host Jessica Tarlov.
The prize is ranking high on Trump’s mind as the U.S. president reportedly told Norway Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg last month that he wanted the Nobel Peace Prize, according to Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. The honor is bestowed by a five-member committee appointed by the country’s parliament. Some countries, including Israel, have already nominated Trump for the prize.
Meanwhile, Clinton reminded Trump that Putin’s ultimate goal is to destroy the U.S. and the Western alliance, adding that the U.S. president needs to take his “rose-colored glasses” off and see the former KGB agent for what he is.
Trump “is not meeting with a friend, he is meeting with an adversary and an adversary who hopes to play them,” Clinton said. “And the best thing that could come out of this, frankly, is probably nothing, nothing agreed to except a real strengthening of President Trump’s understanding that Putin is not someone you can make a deal with and expect it to last.”
Still, Trump seems confident that he will manage to get Putin to agree to end the three-year conflict despite zero evidence to suggest the Russian president is ready to make any concessions required to make that happen.
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“I think President Putin will make peace,” he said Thursday.