Bulwark Takes - Should We Just Keep Trump Busy With Fake Prizes?

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

Ben Parker and Catherine Rampell give their take on the absurdity of Donald Trump receiving the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize, a prize that didn’t exist until it was suddenly handed to the most unlikely recipient imaginable. They walk through the surreal ceremony like the Village People performing, the corruption vibes radiating off every angle of the event, and why FIFA and Trump seem perfectly matched in their mutual need for flattery and image laundering. Find a doctor near you today with ZocDoc at https://Zocdoc.com/BULWARKTAKES.

Hi, everybody. Ben Parker from the Bulwark here with Catherine Rampel because it finally happened. The thing we've all been waiting for, Donald Trump received the Peace Prize from FIFA. This was the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time. Totally unexpected. From the moment that the FIFA president announced that there was a Peace Prize coming, we were all waiting with bated breath to see who was going to get it. not relevant at all that the FIFA president had previously said that Donald Trump totally deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. And this is, of course, not a consolation prize in lieu of the Nobel Peace Prize, totally separate, very prestigious and completely unexpected, clearly. Yeah. I mean, when you think of some of the previous winners of the FIFA Peace Prize, there are none.

Exactly. But it's the first annual. It's the first annual, so there will be many more to come. All total surprises, too. Let's, oh, God, I can't wait for next year when he wins it again. The first back-to-back winner in its history, if you can imagine. Okay, that's next year. We'll do that video in a year from now.

Let's just watch some of this video so we can't accurately describe how stupid this is. You have to see it for yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this is your prize. This is your peace. There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go. I'm going to wear right now.

Okay. Of course yes. Fantastic. Excellent. And you will receive also, of course, a certificate which reads out, and I would read it out with your permission. what are the reasons for you receiving this? This is going to be framed in the Roosevelt room by tomorrow. Football unites the world.

So the FIFA Peace Prize is presented annually on behalf of the billions of football-loving people from around the world to distinguish individual. English is in his first language. Cut him some slack. Oh, no. He knows what he's doing. Come on.

Throughout the world. Through their notable leadership. You think there's chocolate inside of that thing? And therefore, FIFA, the phoeuvre is. International of Football Association awards the 2025 FIFA Peace Prize. Football unites the world to Donald J. Trump, president of the United States of America, in recognition of his exceptional and extraordinary actions

to promote peace and unity around the world. That's what he's known for, promoting unity. Exactly. Just like football is known for using your hands, as was evident in that trophy. Yeah, okay. I'm so glad you noticed that too. They give him this trophy,

which is a bunch of hands reaching for the ball, which I'm pretty sure is like the main thing you're not allowed to do in soccer, sorry, in football, right? So it is actually unintentionally kind of fitting that the prize they are giving him is a literal physical representation of breaking the most basic rules.

They probably had no idea how on the nose it actually was. That's excellent. Yes, just like the, the peace prize itself is given to someone who is really good at at breaking the piece. Totally fitting analogy, exactly. Before we get into more of that, because oh my God, there's so much more that to talk about. I want to ask you about the corruption angle on this because, you know, as I was watching this, I was thinking, which way is this going?

I mean, obviously it's FIFA ingratiating themselves to Trump, right? right before we're about to have the World Cup in the United States. But also, is it, like, FIFA using the opportunity of having a peace prize to sort of, like, launder their own image as being super corrupt and not great? I think there are quids and quos going in both directions here. So, FIFA has plenty on the line. In fact, that ceremony that was hosted today was at the Kennedy Center. and FIFA will be commandeering the Kennedy Center in D.C. for the next three weeks, completely for free. Rent of zero. I'm not sure what the precedent is for that. But at the very least, you know, that would have been quite a big chunk of change.

And they've actually ejected all of the previously scheduled holiday programming, you know, the holiday concerts and the National Symphony and folks like that from the Kennedy Center to do it. So, like, they're getting that for free. I'm sure that they're going to get some other goodies along the way. And, of course, they're going to be all of these games around the country around the U.S., Canada, Mexico. There'll be plenty of opportunities there for some favor trading as well. And again, probably in both directions, whatever it is, FIFA is getting out of this. Presumably, Donald Trump is going to co-op these games for his own political agenda as well on immigration, among other objectives. So, yeah, I think this is a match made in heaven.

I think it's a match made somewhere else. Somewhere else? I was also going to point out that this is not actually the first peace prize that Trump has been awarded this year. That might be a little suspect. Yeah, the Nixon Foundation gave them their peace prize, I think, back in October. So he lost out on the Nobel. I know he's hoping for that. but he has gotten a few other participation awards.

Yeah, you know, the next one actually seems pretty fitting. Okay, you mentioned the actual lack of peace that Trump has achieved. So let's watch the next little bit. We have a clip, I think, where he's asked about, you know, the possible American war crimes off the coast of Venezuela. Let's see what he said. We're expected to get the FIFA Peace Prize, Mr. President. What would you say to people who say that prize might conflict

with your pledge to strike Venezuela? Well, I think the peace prize, I mean, I settled eight wars. I don't know that I'm getting it. I haven't been officially noticed. I've been hearing about a peace prize, and I'm here to represent our country in a different sense. But I can tell you, I did settle eight wars, and we have a ninth coming,

which nobody's ever done before. But I want to really save lives. I don't need prizes. I need to save lives, and we're saving a lot of lives. I've saved millions and millions of lives, and that's really what I want to do. what I want to do. And I also want to run a great country. And the United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world. And one year ago, it was dead. We had a dead country. And now we have

the hottest country anywhere in the world. Yeah. So maybe if really wanted to save millions of lives, he didn't have to, you know, cut all-American foreign aid. Yeah. The Gates Foundation, yeah, the Gates Foundation just said that this will be the first year in decades that child deaths around the world will rise. And that's largely because of our cuts to foreign aid. Oh, God, that's awful. Yeah, so thanks for saving all those lives, President Trump. He also claimed, in addition to saying he stopped eight or nine wars or resolved, eight or nine wars. Actually, I don't think he can reach for the word resolved anymore.

He probably said something like I ended up. I don't know. He also claimed at a different moment that there were some wars that he started, quote, a little bit before they started. Okay. I don't know how you're supposed to measure that. You know, I'm old enough to remember back when the Obama administration came into office at the end of the financial crisis, they started saying that there were so many jobs they had created or saved or saved and a bunch of, you know, more conservative economists

criticizing them saying, you can't really know that. You can't really know if a job would have been lost, if not for the government intervention, it's sort of, you know, an unknowable thing. You shouldn't say that. But wow, to say that you stopped a war before it started, that's a dozy. That's like something out of the end of a James Bond film. Yeah, look, counterfactuals are hard in economics or anything else. But I do think that we can see him ginning up additional aggression around the world.

Anyway, I mean, like we did bomb Iran, for example. We are continuing to do these extra legal, extrajudicial possible war crimes or murder in the Caribbean, as he was asked about there. So I don't know how those are counted in the tally here, but probably not in the peace column, not in the war stopping column. But look, this is all made up anyway. So of course he's going to say he stopped wars before they start. started, because, like, it's all pretend. Borg takes a sponsor by Zock Talk. I don't know about you guys, but my entire social feed is filled with different health

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Zachtok.com slash bulwarktix. Maybe if you count the fact that he, at least for now, has not decided to invade Greenland and Panama, as he talked about a few months ago. Maybe those, that counts for two. In Canada? In Canada, remember? There's three, three right now.

You know what? I think you're right. I think those are the wars he did not start. He stops the wars that he decided not to start. Great. Yes, exactly, exactly. You know, it's effective. It is effective at not having a war is just not, not this, not threatening it in the

first place. Now, I got to say this next clip, this is the last clip we're going to share. And then I'm going to, I'm going to try to, I'm going to try out a hot take on you. But this next clip, I am so glad we have because I was genuinely curious if he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, the actual piece. Well, you could be quasi-actual Peace Prize. what his Nobel lecture would have been, and now, now we get to see what words of wisdom he has to share with the world. And oh, boy.

But when you look at what has happened to football in the United States, again, soccer in the United States, we seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of 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 it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff. Yes. It really doesn't make sense when you think about it. It's really football. You know, Trump, the globalist, man. That's what this is about. He's trying to give us the same terms that the rest of the world uses. I don't know. Is this really America first? It's a good question. We didn't have it in the video here, but I'm pretty sure that his speech went on to say, he asked the audience, why was six afraid of seven? What is he doing it there?

like this is why he's just look he's got this material he's been saving up he's waiting for his Nobel Peace Prize by the way there are at least a dozen countries and or U.S. lawmakers who have nominated him for that Peace Prize they missed the deadline this year but he's up for it next year and he's just you know he's he's trying out his material yeah well it needs a little more workshopping and I yeah yes yes I can okay so here's my hot take this is a very good thing I'm glad this happened I want this to happen more every day I want the NFL Players Association to give him album of the year I want Miss Magazine to give him best new air conditioning unit all the made up prizes I want them to give him because it took a bunch of time

He spent an inordinate amount of time standing there, dancing to YMCA. Like, you know, when they sing happy birthday and you don't know what to do, he spent like four and a half minutes doing that. He wasn't focused on trying to break democracy. He's collecting little gold bobbles that, like, honestly don't matter that much. And actually, he had some very friendly things to say about our neighbors to the North and South, who, as you mentioned, are also hosting. the World Cup next year. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada and Claudia Shinebound from Mexico, we're both there. And he talked about how friendly we are and how much we get along. So, yeah, more made-up BS prizes that waste this guy's time. Please, every day. Like, let's just

do one of these every day. So I have multiple reactions to that. One, yes, any minute he is spending doing nonsense like this, harmless effectively nonsense like this is a minute he is not spending doing something much worse. That's totally fair. And he's good at the performative stuff. He really wants to be more of a figurehead than an actual person who has to govern. So sure. However, a lot of these prizes, these like fake trophies and other bibles that he's being given are not necessarily a good use of the time of the gift giver. Right. So like FIFA, I don't know, they're not exactly the most pristine organization. They've been known for all sorts of, gotten tied up in all sorts of corruption scandals in the past. So like, I don't know what their outside option is. Maybe it's

better. Maybe it's worse. But like Apple, Apple spent a lot of time coming up with that gold in glass 24-carat gold trophy that they gave to Donald Trump a plaque. That is time that their brightest minds should have spent coming up with better products and customers and investments and other things that businesses are supposed to do. The more time that they spend on this kind of bullshit, the less time that they spend actually trying to make money and do things that are profitable beyond just avoiding the retribution of the president. Likewise for Diet Coke, which gave him the first inaugural Diet Coke Award. Likewise, for a McDonald's franchisee that gave him the fry cook pin. There's a whole list of these kinds of trophies and fake awards that companies have

spent inordinate time planning, not just awards. There's also like Rush Hour 4, which I wrote about recently, which is a film that would not have been made, is what, you know, was unsellable until Donald Trump leaned on paramount to distribute it and eventually get it done. These kinds of things are not a good investment of companies' time, and this is part of the reason why in parts of the world, where there is less rule of law and more corruption, they have worse economic growth because businesses are trying to navigate the corruption and figure out who's palm to Greece rather than doing the thing that is more efficient. a more efficient allocation of resources like coming up the new products and sales and all of that.

So we have models in other parts of the world where businesses are also wasting their time with bullshit of various kinds or bribes or other kinds of corruption. And besides the fact that you end up with worse outcomes for democracy, you also end up with worse economic outcomes. So I don't know. I take your point. I can go both ways on this one. counterpoint Trump's tastes are incredibly cheap and you can

you can delight him with it's a three-step process step one go on Etsy step two buy literally anything step three spray painted gold colored

and then give it to him that's it he loves gold colored stuff it'll show up in the Oval Office the next day and okay no I want to I want to ask you a little bit more of a serious question well Switzerland Switzerland put a little more time and effort

you know they gave him a gold old bar. They gave him a Rolex clock. Those are not things that you could just pick up on Etsy. Now, maybe they could have spray painted a brick and he wouldn't have been able to tell difference. I don't know. They went way out of the way. It was effective. It was effective. They got tariffs reduced. However, there's now a big corruption investigation in Switzerland because the public was so aghast at this like clear effort at, you know, tip for tat bribery, essentially. The thing that the United States used to police around the world via the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, now other countries are effectively having to enforce against us, whatever their equivalent version is, because now we are the corrupt government that is effectively soliciting bribes of various kinds or something tantamount to bribes. So, I don't know, not a good deal for Switzerland, I guess.

Well, merci and donkishen to the Swiss for standing up for traditional American values. And good at sea. Yeah. Gratia. That's right. And I'm not even going to try Romash, the other ones I don't even know. But your latest newsletter, receipts, if you're not reading receipts, you've got to go read receipts at the bulwark, Catherine Rampel. Your latest newsletter is all about how Trump is trying to turn affordability into a hoax.

It's a Democrat scam, he says. And I got to, I got to wonder, is him collecting gold trophies? and medals and decorating the White House with everything gold, a good look when he, A, ran on the fact that there was an affordability crisis and out of control inflation, B, promised to bring prices down on things like groceries and energy

that have not come down, and C, is now pretending that there is no affordability crisis, it's a hoax. Is this a good look for him at all? Probably not. Neither is having a great Gatsby-themed party the night before a whole bunch of Americans were about to lose their food stamps. I mean, there are lots of tone-deaf things that he has done here.

That turning the White House into the cheesecake factory with all of the gold everywhere. Yeah. And yet somehow it doesn't seem to affect him that much. I don't know. It's puzzling to me. This is a guy who has run on having really tacky, 80-style tastes for a very long time, who has called himself a billionaire for a very long time. even when he luckily wasn't. Now, you know, he's getting all sorts, besides getting gold gifts, he's also getting a bunch of gifts via crypto. So probably he is a billionaire now.

And the Katai plane is worth his half a bill right there, right? Yeah, exactly. I think 400 million, but yes, close enough, close enough. So he's run on basically being a version of the elites, but also the common man, right? He's there looking out for the common man. represents the tastes of the common man. So I don't know. It's, to me, all this stuff feels super tone deaf and seems really offensive, particularly as he's saying, affordability is a hoax

and a con job and all of that, that people should be happier with their lot effectively because he's fixed inflation, even though he obviously hasn't. It seems like this should be damaging to him. and maybe in some ways it has. I mean, his economic approval numbers are quite low or pretty bad. So maybe it is, but it doesn't seem to have been quite as deflating as I would have expected, given that split screen. Yeah, well, let's give it time. And when he wins next year's FIFA Peace Prize, we can check in and see where we are. And the Nobel.

And the Nobel. I'm not holding my brother for that one. Catherine Rampel, thank you so much. And hey, remember, we do this all the time. We like to have fun. Sometimes we cry. So like the video, subscribe to the page, and become a bulwark plus member at the bulwark.com.