He has built lavish clubs and gold-encrusted skyscrapers. He won the White House not once but twice. He has leveraged his power to exact retribution on political opponents, corporate executives and world leaders.
And yet, one accolade has eluded President Trump, and the leader of the free world has made no secret about how irritated he is by what he sees as a snub.
“They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” Mr. Trump said last month during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office. “It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
For nearly a decade, Mr. Trump has publicly and privately complained that he has yet to win the prestigious prize. He has mentioned the award dozens of times in interviews, speeches and campaign rallies dating back to his first term. And as he presses for cease-fire deals in Ukraine and the Middle East, current and former advisers say the award is looming large in his mind.
“The Nobel Peace Prize is illegitimate if President Trump — the ultimate peace president — is denied his rightful recognition of bringing harmony across the world,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement.
In many ways, Mr. Trump’s public jockeying for the prize reflects his focus on accolades, praise and acceptance — and a burning desire to best his predecessors. President Barack Obama won the prize less than eight months after taking office in 2009 for confronting “the great climatic challenges,” a decision that elicited worldwide controversy.