Of all the insane press conferences Donald Trump has held over the last two years, last Friday’s was arguably among the most off-the-rails nuts. Over the course of 50 minutes, the president of the United States declared the necessity of a national emergency to build a border wall only to acknowledge he “didn’t need to do this”; went on long, rambling asides about how great Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are; berated reporters who asked him questions he didn’t like; and spoke admiringly of executing drug dealers. Oh, and he claimed that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had secretly nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, on account of all the great work he’s apparently done with North Korea:

I think I can say this: Prime Minister Abe of Japan gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize. He said, “I have nominated you, or, respectfully, on behalf of Japan, I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize.” I said, “Thank you.”

Many other people feel that way, too. I’ll probably never get it. But that’s O.K. They gave it to Obama. He didn’t even know what he got it for. He was there for about 15 seconds and he got the Nobel Prize. He said, “Oh, what did I get it for?” With me, I probably will never get it.

I mean, it was the most beautiful five-letter—five-page letter. Nobel Prize. He sent it to them. You know why? Because he had rocket ships and he had missiles flying over Japan. And they had alarms going off—you know that. Now, all of a sudden, they feel good. They feel safe. I did that.

Like so many things that come out of Trump’s mouth, no one was quite sure if this was a complete and total lie or some kind of half-truth that got lost in translation. But according to a new report on Sunday, Abe did indeed nominate the president for a prize—though only because the White House asked him to:

Acceding to a request from Washington, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nominated U.S. President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize around autumn for engaging with North Korea, Japanese government sources said February 16.

According to the sources, the U.S. government “informally” asked Tokyo to nominate Trump after he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June, the first-ever summit between the two countries.

As New York notes, Nobel Peace Prize nominations are meant to remain anonymous for 50 years, so it’s very likely that Abe figured he could throw the White House a bone without anyone having to know about it until long after both he and Trump were dead. On Monday, the prime minister would only tell reporters, “I’m not saying it’s not true.”

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