In Now-Deleted Rant, Trump Went off on “Noble” Prize for Journalism, Which Isn’t a Thing

You know Donald Trump is having a bad time when he actually has to delete his tweets—when he posts something that is too over-the-top, too outlandish or embarrassing even by his standards. By that measure, Trump had a very bad weekend.

Trump’s strategy for engaging with the press has shifted in recent days. After suggesting the idea that introducing disinfectant or a “very powerful light” into the human body could be a potential treatment for the coronavirus last week, Trump was relentlessly mocked, questioned, and criticized. On Friday, he gave an uncharacteristically short press conference, and over the weekend, he chose to forego his usual coronavirus briefings altogether–something his aides and advisors have reportedly been trying to get him to do for a while now.

But while Trump may be canceling his briefings, he still has a lot of thoughts about things that make him angry and a compulsive need to share them, making for a perfect storm of aggressive rage-tweeting.

The daily briefings gave Trump an opportunity to berate the press in person, but now, he’s had to return to doing that via tweet.

Over the weekend, he attacked everyone from the Wall Street Journal to his once-beloved Fox News, accusing the network of “being fed Democrat talking points.” He attacked a New York Times article that describes Trump as angry and worried about his reelection. The report claims he doesn’t often come to work until noon, though he wakes up at 5AM and spends hours watching cable news.

He deleted those tweets but reposted them with the correct spelling of “hamburger,” as if that were the real problem with the messages. Later, though, he had a string of tweets so absurdly bizarre that he ended up deleting them for good, but the internet remembers—and the internet takes screenshots.

In the thread, Trump attacked the reporters who have received “Noble Prizes” for their work on Russian interference in the 2016 election. He said those journalists were “proven totally wrong” and should give back “their cherished ‘Nobles’ so that they can be given to the REAL REPORTERS AND JOURNALISTS who got it right.” He offered to give the “Noble Committee” a “very comprehensive list” of candidates.

“When will the Noble Committee Act?” he lamented. “Better be fast!”

Wow, where to start with this? Maybe with the fact that there is no Nobel Prize for journalism; the equivalent would be a Pulitzer. Although, since Trump has trouble even spelling “Nobel” correctly, it’s no wonder he doesn’t attempt the more multisyllabic award.

Trump deleted those tweets and posted a new one claiming “sarcasm,” the same excuse he used for his comments about injecting bleach to kill a virus last week.

The answer, of course, is that sarcasm can work, but that’s never been what Trump is doing, and he seems to legitimately not know what it means.

By the way, the 2020 Pulitzer winners won’t be named until May 4th, so I’m not sure why Trump is so focused on them (even if he did get the name of the award wrong). But given how many 2019 winners got the honor for their work looking into and exposing Trump, I imagine we have another rage-tweet thread in our near future after this year’s winners are announced.

(image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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