'Out of the blue': Trump resorts to cold-calling to stump for Nobel Prize

President Donald Trump randomly told the Norwegian minister of finance on a phone call that he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, The Guardian reported on Thursday.

"The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: 'Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs,'" reported Maya Yang. "The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg."

Stoltenberg didn't weigh in on the matter publicly, telling reporters, “I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” and saying that the call also included his U.S. counterpart, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer."

The president has for months promised to make a series of "deals" that will improve trade for the United States, using the potential reduction of his extreme "reciprocal tariffs" as a bargaining chip.

This also comes as Trump has ramped up his public comments on how much he thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize — something that former President Barack Obama won shortly after taking office.

"They would never give me a Peace Prize. They only give it to liberals," Trump said during a news conference last month, while talking about the work he did in his first term to broker an economic deal between Serbia and Kosovo.

A handful of politicians have nominated Trump for the prize over the years, but there has been no indication that such nominations have ever been under serious consideration by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Trump's hopes suffered a setback earlier this year when a Ukrainian lawmaker who had nominated him rescinded the nomination, citing a loss of confidence in Trump's ability to end Russia's invasion of the country.