Trump Can’t Stop Talking About Dumb, Made-Up FIFA Prize

He just can’t let it go. President Donald Trump is still over the moon after receiving the FIFA Peace Prize on Friday, an award invented expressly to stroke his ego.

On Saturday morning, the president, after dashing off some angry rants at a CNN reporter and Fox and Friends, dreamily revisited the experience.

“Such a great honor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, sharing a Newsmax article about the event. “Thank you FIFA, and have a historic World Cup!”

Gianni Infantino, the president of the international soccer league, presented Trump with the brand new award at the 2026 FIFA World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

“This is your peace prize,” Infantino said, as he handed the president a certificate, a trophy, and a medal.

A beaming Trump responded by speaking about how truly honored he was to receive it. “We’ve saved millions and millions of lives,” Trump said, gushing about the award. “So many different wars that we were able to end.”

The president has lobbied for years for the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor bestowed on other leaders like President Barack Obama. In support of his ongoing quest, Trump continues to repeat the highly questionable claim that he’s ended several wars. It’s hard to keep track of how many; the number, magically, keeps climbing.

By giving the president something he said he’d always wanted, Infantino was clearly seizing upon an opportunity to appease the world leader. But the move (unsurprisingly) garnered criticism. FIFA is supposed to be a neutral body, and Trump’s record isn’t exactly peaceful.

Among other things, Trump’s administration has killed more than 80 people in deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean, armed and supported Israel in its genocidal war on Gaza, and overseen a violent crackdown against immigrants in the U.S. He’s also made aggressive moves that could indicate a potential future war with Venezuela.

None of that seemed to matter much at the ceremony on Friday, though.

While the president is very pleased to be the recipient of this new, prestigious, very-much-not-invented award, does this mean he’ll finally shut up about the Nobel?

It’s very, very unlikely.

Juan Orlando Hernández—narcotrafficker, former Honduran president, and recent recipient of a pardon from President Donald Trump—played a key role in what the Justice Department dubbed “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”

Now, Hernández, who once reportedly told his co-conspirators that they were going to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses,” is heaping gratitude on leading figures in MAGA (a movement purportedly in favor of stopping the influx of drugs into the United States, by any means necessary).

On X Friday, Hernández shared his first message since being released from a U.S. prison, where he was just over a year into a 45-year sentence: an 11-minute Spanish-language speech expressing his “profound gratitude to President Donald Trump,” along with a tweet extolling Trump and other key figures in his orbit.

Hernández specifically thanked Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz, allies of the president who played central roles in the campaign for his pardon. (They characterized Hernández’s prosecution in the sort of grievance-soaked terms Trump could appreciate, as an alleged instance of lawfare by the Biden administration.)

Hernández also extended his gratitude to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who has described the former Honduran president as a victim of “Biden over-prosecution,” as well as to Ed Martin, the Justice Department’s MAGA pardon attorney, and Trump’s “pardon czar,” Alice Marie Johnson.

Social media users are skewering the U.S. Treasury Department for bragging about something eminently non-bragworthy.

On Friday, the Treasury Department’s official X account shared a chart reflecting that, in 2025, “U.S. Treasuries are having their best year since 2020.” Claiming that this indicates high investor confidence in President Donald Trump’s agenda, the post continued, “Never bet against @POTUS or America!”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent chimed in with a celebratory meme of the children’s book character Franklin the Turtle holding a stack of money while wearing a MAGA hat. (The administration also recently used Franklin’s likeness to make light of its reported war crimes in the Caribbean.)

But, as many observers were quick to note, rising bond market returns actually may signal economic uncertainty, as investors anticipating a slowdown or instability seek safety in Treasuries. The high bond returns in 2020, for example, reflected such a “flight to safety” amid the economic turmoil of the pandemic.

Mike Bird, Wall Street editor at The Economist, shared his own Franklin the Turtle meme, in which the character wears a worried expression as he “discovers that rising bond prices can also imply lower future growth expectations”:

The Treasury Department’s post left some observers in disbelief. Adam Kinzinger, political commentator and former Republican U.S. representative, had the following to say: “Wait. Wut? Higher is bad…. Wait…. No way they’re…. Nooooo, what?!?!”

The ridicule spanned the political spectrum. Progressive MS NOW commentator Chris Hayes said he initially thought the tweet was parody. Libertarian Atlantic staff writer Conor Friedersdorf wrote, “Oh my God. They really don’t know.” Tim Chapman of the conservative policy organization Advancing American Freedom said the Treasury Department’s social media team “needs a crash course in Economics 101.”

Never Trump conservative writer Bill Kristol called the post “total economic illiteracy (or gaslighting),” noting, “This is like saying sales of cold medicine are having a great year, aren’t our health policies working great!”

Amanda Fischer, policy director at Better Markets and former chief of staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission, called it a “hall of fame level derp tweet.” And @3YearLetterman, a satirical internet personality known for sharing comically ignorant takes on sports, culture, and politics, posted, “I can’t top this.”

A new, disturbing detail in the “drug boat” controversy that has enveloped Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the past week calls the purpose of the entire operation into question.

According to an exclusive report from CNN, the alleged narco-trafficking boat that the U.S. military targeted on September 2 in a “double tap” strike, which killed 11 people, wasn’t even heading to the U.S.

Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who was in charge of the operation, reported to lawmakers that the boat they struck was actually en route to link up with a larger boat that was heading to Suriname, a country east of Venezuela, two sources with direct knowledge of his remarks said.

Bradley also said that it was still possible that the alleged drug shipment could have eventually ended up in the U.S., the sources told CNN—rather dubious justification for a strike that left several people dead.

President Donald Trump had previously claimed that the strike happened “while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.”

The U.S. military targeted the small boat on September 2, purportedly to stop it from transporting illegal drugs to the United States. After the first strike, two survivors were left, clinging to the wreckage, yet the military struck the boat again and again, killing everyone who had been on board. They ultimately struck the boat four times.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who approved the operation, but sought to shift responsibility to Bradley, has come under intense criticism for authorizing a strike on survivors. Lawmakers and critics on the right and the left have decried the strike as a war crime.

It doesn’t help that the Trump administration’s story keeps changing. As more details emerge, the argument for the deadly boat strike becomes flimsier and flimsier.

As the Republican Party flails on the cost-of-living crisis, President Donald Trump kicked off his Saturday morning with an attack on his beloved Fox & Friends for prodding that sensitive subject.

The show on Saturday hosted Peter Schiff, a stockbroker and financial commentator. He’s also a rising critic of Trump—Schiff has taken the president to task for dismissing economic concerns amid mounting inflation, job losses, and affordability issues.

On Truth Social, the president called Schiff a “Trump hating loser” and questioned the integrity of the Fox News program—of which he is, famously, an avid viewer—for having given him a platform. “Either the show made a mistake, or it is heading in a different direction,” Trump wrote, urging its staff to look into “the ‘booker’ who put this jerk on!”

Schiff, Trump wrote, “thinks prices are going up when, in fact, they are coming substantially down.” The claim is a familiar one from the president, who recently referred to “affordability” as a Democratic “hoax,” while recent polls show concerns about his handling of the economy rising to a fever pitch—and even growing among his own voters.

This mounting frustration with the administration, and apparently resultant GOP losses in recent elections, has created anxiety in the party. Some politicians and strategists are calling on Republicans to rethink their approach so as to actually address voters’ material concerns.