Black, Blackburn and DesJarlais join GOP congressmen nominating Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

Eighteen Republican U.S. House members –  including three from Tennessee – have signed a letter formally nominating  President Donald Trump for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to get North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons program, according to ABC News.

Rep. Luke Messer of Indiana, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in his home state,  drafted the letter. Five other signers are also running for higher office, including Tennessee Reps. Marsha Blackburn, also running for the Senate, and Diane Black, a candidate for governor. The third Tennessee signee was Rep. Scott DesJarlais.

Besides Messer and Blackburn, the signers running for the Senate are Reps. Jim Renacci of Ohio, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota Evan Jenkins of West Virginia.

“President Trump’s peace through strength policies are working and bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula,” Messer wrote in his letter, “We can think of no one more deserving of the Committee’s recognition in 2019 than President Trump for his tireless work to bring peace to our world.”

According to the guidelines from the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Members of Congress qualify as nominators for Nobel Peace Prizes.

The GOP primary in Indiana, the home state of Vice President Mike Pence, has been particularly divisive over the issue of support for President Trump.

Messer’s campaign has referred one of his opponents, Rep. Todd Rokita, as “Lying Todd Rokita,” while businessman Mike Braun is running an ad featuring cardboard cutouts of his two opponents asking people on the street to try and tell Messer and Rokita apart.

Rokita is not one of the House members who signed onto Messer’s letter nominating Trump for a Nobel Prize.

Black provides this comment via press release: “The President’s tireless work to bring North Korea to the table and end its nuclear weapons programs has resulted in peace negotiations in the Korean Peninsula for the first time in decades – a truly remarkable accomplishment. There is no one more deserving of this recognition than President Trump.” She also provides a link to the letter text, which is HERE.