'Recall his demands for a Nobel Prize': GOP strategist tears apart Trump's hypocrisy

President Donald Trump once demanded a Nobel Peace Prize, but now is leading America into an unnecessary war against Iran — a hypocrisy that former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt insisted on Friday deserves more attention.

“He wanted the Peace Prize, and when he couldn’t get it, Trump lost his mind,” Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush, explained. Schmidt quoted a February letter Trump wrote to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre which implied he would become a warmonger because of his disappointment at being denied the prize.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump told Støre.

Schmidt added that Trump told Norway yesterday, “I’m no longer interested in it [the Peace Prize]." The conservative pundit then argued Trump’s personality is such that his warmongering was inevitable.

“No man of violence and venom can resist the siren song of modern warfare, which, after all, is just a game,” Schmidt wrote, using the term “game” facetiously and in reference to Trump’s seemingly blasé attitude toward armed conflict. “This is Trump’s team: Hegseth, Rubio, Vance, Cain, Bondi, Noem, Kushner, Witkoff, Musk, Weiss, Ellison, Hannity, Graham, Patel. Never have so many nitwits commanded so much power. They are a terrifying bunch, to say the least.”

Schmidt concluded by insisting “war is no game. Yet, it is treated as such by a group of vile men and women who are playing with human life as if they were gods. Trump is no god. There is no divinity lurking around Trump. There is only blackness. Only death. Only misery. Only wreckage. Only corruption.”

Despite previously advising Republicans like Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Schmidt is an outspoken critic of Trump. Earlier this month he accused Trump of lacking any coherent plan for the Iran war.

“We deserve to know,” Schmidt explained. “There is no plan. There is no strategy. There is only incoherence. There is only incompetence.” He identified Secretary of Defense Hegseth as a chief culprit for the war’s flaws by working closely with Dan Caine, who Schmidt characterized as “a highly political chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who should never have been confirmed by the Senate for the job. The result is a disaster.”

In a separate March editorial, Schmidt said the money spent to attack Iran could be better dedicated to domestic needs.

“We're always told there isn't enough money for schools, for health care, or for our veterans — but there's always enough money to bomb people on the other side of the world,” Schmidt argued. “We can support the democracy movement in Iran. We can prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — all without bombing innocent schoolchildren or sending American troops off to die on the other side of the world.”