Trump Accepts Made-Up ‘Peace Prize,’ Then Suggests Renaming American Football in Wild FIFA Appearance
Trump Accepts Made-Up ‘Peace Prize,’ Then Suggests Renaming American Football in Wild FIFA Appearance
MS NOW host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki was left stunned by President Donald Trump’s latest “eye-popping” remarks—this time delivered moments after he accepted a newly invented “Peace Prize.”
Trump appeared at the FIFA Draw, an event meant to assign groups for the upcoming World Cup. But in an unexpected twist, FIFA President Gianni Infantino unveiled a brand-new accolade created just for the occasion: the “inaugural 2025 FIFA Peace Prize.”
Moments later, Trump used the stage to suggest that the NFL should change the name of American football to avoid confusing soccer fans—an idea that immediately set off waves of disbelief online.
On Friday’s episode of MS NOW: The Briefing, Psaki opened her show by marveling at the spectacle and openly mocking the legitimacy of the prize itself.
PSAKI: Okay. I have asked this question many times in the last year. It’s almost become a bit of a cliche, I guess. But sometimes Donald Trump does something so completely bizarre, so eyepopping, so outside the role of an American president that it just prompts me to ask this question again. I mean, what would have happened if a Democratic president did this? Again, this is an evergreen question.
And today, Donald Trump is once again forcing us to ask that off-re repeated question because I am genuinely curious. I truly, truly want to know what would have happened if Joe Biden or Barack Obama or frankly any president before them in between them stood before a national audience and suggested we change the name of American football to appease a European-based soccer league.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, it’s again soccer in the United States. We seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that’s called football. But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called? I mean, this is football. There’s no question about we have to come up with another name for that stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, yeah.
TRUMP: It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it. But this is really football.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: That is again the leader of the Republican Party, a party that once tried to change the name of French fries to freedom fries. Remember that? Just to spite the nation of France in that case, suggesting that American football give up its name to accommodate soccer.
Now, the backstory of this whole episode also is even crazier because the reason Trump was on that stage ranting about changing the name of the most popular sport in America was so he could accept a made-up peace prize from the notoriously corrupt soccer organization, FIFA.
Actually, I take that back because FIFA actually gave the president two made-up awards today. One big trophy. You can see it on your screen right there. And what looked like a big gold coin taped to a lanyard cable I guess thing that’s around his neck there.
It was all a part of what they are calling the FIFA Peace Prize and award that is not a real thing and never existed before this year and was clearly just invented to make Trump feel good about himself.
Never mind the fact that the organization handing out this so-called peace prize has been accused of everything from corruption and bribery to abusing migrant workers building soccer stadiums in the Middle East. That’s the organization that gave it out. Which basically means that I mean it the irony is doesn’t even begin to tell the story here. It’s completely crazy and totally ironic.
But this is how Donald Trump treats the American presidency these days. He’s slapping his name on the us institute of peace to feed his already overinflated ego. He’s changing the architect for his new White House ballroom, another absurd vanity project, occupying all of his time. He’s attending what is essentially a private concert by the Village People and doing that kind of weird little dance he does that I just like can’t even recreate whatever’s happening on the screen right now.
And when all of that tuckers him out, and it seems to be tuckering him out, he enjoys dozing off in the middle of cabinet meetings. And all of that, everything I just showed you was just within the past week, the past week.
