Despite starting the Iran war, Trump still thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and complains the winner is someone ‘who nobody has ever heard of’

President Donald Trump veered far from midterm election politics during a rally in upstate New York on Friday, aiming a bitter diatribe at the Norwegian Nobel Committee for giving the Peace Prize he has long sought to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a former U.N. human rights chief, for her work on justice and accountability for war crimes and genocide.

Trump unspooled a lengthy argument explaining why the award was “an indelible stain on the country of Norway,” saying he “should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t.” Trump claimed, as he often does, to have ended eight wars, though some of the conflicts the president claims to have resolved were merely tensions, and his role in easing them has been disputed.

Meanwhile, the war with Iran that he and Israel started — which Trump predicted would last mere weeks — remains unsettled and is a weight on his party as it faces a dour electorate ahead of midterm elections.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted last month and published Oct.

1 found 71% of U.S. adults disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, with 28% approving.

The conflict has pushed gas prices higher, and polls show voters blame Trump for the high cost of living.

Trump bitterly described Pillay as “a liberal person who works at the United Nations who nobody has ever heard of,” adding: “The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilization.

And we will not forget, Norway, ” Nobel diatribe eclipses political mission It was a lengthy deviation from an event aimed at promoting Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee in the race for New York governor.

While Trump criticized Democratic incumbent Gov.

Kathy Hochul, who is running for her second full term, he spent as much time excoriating New York Attorney General Letitia James, a prominent Trump adversary who brought civil charges against Trump and his business.

As a result of James’ charges, a court found Trump liable for fraud.

An appeals court subsequently threw out the massive financial penalty but upheld the fraud finding.

On Friday, from the stage at the Oncenter in Syracuse, New York, Trump called James “a dog.” Trump has been on a series of political stops, trying to stoke loyalty among his base as Republicans work to fight off possible setbacks in their effort to hold congressional majorities on Nov.

3.