In October 2026, a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee published a letter discussing why it did not award the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Donald Trump.
A rumor (archived) that a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee published a letter discussing why it did not award the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Donald Trump circulated in October.
For example, an X user praised the letter from the alleged committee member about its deliberations for the 2026 Peace Prize, writing “This is amazing!!”
An excerpt from the alleged letter read:
Now. This year. I will not say the name, because we never say the name, but you know the name.
A certain head of state wanted this prize the way a child wants a thing in a shop window, which is to say loudly, and in public, and with the full belief that wanting it was itself the argument. He said he deserved it. He said he’d ended eight wars, a number that grew most times he said it, like a fish. He had other heads of state phone us. Israel’s prime minister posted it on the internet, “Give him the Nobel.” The leaders of Cambodia and Pakistan announced they’d nominated him, as though announcing it were part of it, as though we tally mentions. A man flew around the globe collecting endorsements for a Norwegian committee the way you’d collect signatures for a petition to the council about a noisy dog.
The rumor spread as the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Peace Prize to South African lawyer Navanethem Navi Pillay. Claims had circulated in late 2025 about whether Trump might be in contention for the next year’s prize.
People on Facebook also shared the letter from the alleged Norwegian Nobel Committee member (archived, archived). Some users seemed to interpret the letter as authentic, though others identified it as satire. Snopes readers searched our site to investigate the letter’s legitimacy.
We identified the alleged letter’s original source: an X account reportedly based in Austin, Texas, that describes its owner as a “Reader. Writer. Satirist. Hacker.” Therefore, we find the letter originated as satire.
The “Peter Girnus” account on X first shared the alleged letter on Oct. 12 (archived). Though the account described itself as satirical in nature, it did not include markings in its post making it obvious that the content was satire.
Aside from the account’s self-classification as satire, several other details made it obvious the letter was not written by a real member of the real Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize.
The five committee members’ names are publicly available on the Nobel Peace Prize’s website. None of them are named “Peter Girnus.”
Additionally, Snopes previously reported that Nobel Peace Prize nominations are strictly confidential until 50 years after the committee awards a prize. Therefore, a committee member would not be allowed to discuss Trump in 2026 if he made it onto the official nominations list for that year’s prize. Trump received at least one nomination for the 2026 prize, as Snopes previously reported.
After sharing the initial letter on Oct. 12, the “Peter Girnus” account also shared a follow-up letter and a fake Trump Truth Social post about the fabricated letter (archived, archived).
The “Peter Girnus” account contained other fictitious letters. For example, the account included posts where the writer posed as “the United States Ambassador to a warm, strategically vital ally on the Aegean,” a “Director for Energy and Sanctions at the National Security Council” and a “Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of the Republic of India.”
Since the effectiveness of satire is subjective, we use “originated as satire” or “labeled satire” ratings based on creators’ descriptions of their work. It’s your call on whether you agree.
