Special envoy Steve Witkoff declared Tuesday that President Trump is the finest candidate to ever be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize, prompting a round of applause from Cabinet officials.

Speaking at Mr. Trump’s pre-Labor Day Cabinet meeting, Mr. Witkoff ticked off a list of accomplishments that he said make the president worthy of winning the prestigious peace award.

“There’s only one thing I wish for — that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about,” Mr. Witkoff said. “Your success is game-changing out in the world today, and I hope everybody wakes up and realizes that.”

Mr. Trump has made no secret about his desire to win the Nobel Prize. He frequently touts ending multiple wars and his efforts to achieve peace between Ukraine and Russia, as well as between Israel and Hamas.

At the Cabinet meeting, Mr. Witkoff laid out the case. He predicted both the wars in Ukraine and Gaza could be settled by the end of the year. He said that when he travels to global hotspots, people in those regions talk about Mr. Trump “reverentially.”

“I sometimes wish that I had a cam recorder with me and I could put you right there as I listened to it,” he told the president.

Mr. Trump faces long odds to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Only three U.S. presidents have won the award while in Office. President Obama won it in 2009 for strengthening international diplomacy.

President Theodore Roosevelt won it in 1906 for his effort to end the war between Japan and the Russian Empire.

President Wilson won it in 1919 for helping launch the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, at the end of World War I.

President Carter won the award in 2002, more than 20 years after he left office, for his decades of promoting democracy and human rights and mediating disputes.

The betting website Oddschecker has Mr. Trump as the second-favorite choice behind Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin for decades. Navalny died in a Russian prison in February 2024.

The website has Mr. Trump with an implied probability of roughly 32% and Ms. Navalnaya with nearly 35%. Behind Mr. Trump are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and climate activist Greta Thunberg, among others.

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.