María Corina Machado says she presented Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal | María Corina Machado
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she “presented” her gold Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump after meeting at the White House nearly two weeks after he ordered the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Machado, who received the award last year for his fight against Maduro’s “brutal, authoritarian state,” told reporters he did so “in recognition.” [of] his unique devotion [to] our freedom.” It was not immediately clear whether Trump accepted the gift.
Earlier in the day, Nobel organizers posted on X: “The owner of the medal can change, but the title of the Nobel Peace Prize winner cannot.”
Machado, whose movement is widely believed to have defeated Maduro in Venezuela’s 2024 elections, was unexpectedly sidelined by Trump after US special forces troops captured his political rival in the early hours of January 3.
Opposition supporters had hoped that Trump would recognize the 58-year-old conservative politician as Venezuela’s new leader after Maduro’s ouster, but instead he endorsed vice president Delcy Rodríguez, the dictator’s second-in-command who would later be sworn in as acting president.
On Thursday, Machado told reporters in a bid to win back Trump’s support that he “presented” the Norwegian medal to the US president during a private meeting.
Earlier this week, organizers of the Nobel peace prize announced that the prize “cannot be shared or transferred” after Machado told Fox News that he wanted to “share” the award with Trump. “The decision is final and valid forever,” they said.
Despite this, Machado continued his symbolic gesture; a move that analysts see as an attempt to salvage the movement’s fading hopes of seizing power, with Maduro now out of sight and behind bars in New York.
Speaking to reporters, Machado compared handing over his medal to Trump to the Marquis de Lafayette sending a gold medal with a picture of George Washington to South American independence hero Simón Bolívar in 1825. Machado called Lafayette’s gift “a sign of the brotherhood of the people of the United States and the people of Venezuela in their struggle for freedom against tyranny.”
Trump’s decision not to support Machado after deposing Maduro was reportedly a result of soured relations between Machado and members of the Trump team, as well as concerns that Machado’s movement would not be able to control the security situation in Venezuela.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday: “The president’s assessment was based on the facts on the ground. This was a realistic assessment based on what the president has read and heard from his national security team. His view on this issue has not changed at this time.”
Machado is not the first Nobel laureate to be deprived of the prize.
After winning the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, Ernest Hemingway entrusted his medal to the Catholic Church in Cuba. briefly stolen From a bunker in 1986 before Raúl Castro ordered his return.
In 2022, Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctioned off his medal to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees. Leon Lederman, who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics, sold it after 20 years “sitting on a shelf somewhere.”
But the Venezuelan politician appears to be the first to give away his medal for clearly political reasons.
Just hours after Trump announced Maduro’s extradition, he threw down a bucket of ice-cold water on the hopes that opposition leaders would immediately replace him, calling Machado “a very nice woman.” [who] …does not have the support and respect to take power in the country.
Trump had kinder words for Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, saying: “He’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
Trump then sought to dampen expectations that a new election could be held in the near future. “We have to fix the country first. You can’t have elections. There’s no way people can even vote,” he told NBC News two days after Maduro’s capture.
Speaking ahead of Thursday’s pivotal meeting, Leavitt told reporters that Trump was looking forward to a “good, positive discussion” with Machado, whom he called “a remarkable and courageous voice for many of the Venezuelan people.” Trump hoped to discuss “facts on the ground” in Venezuela.
Leavitt said Rodríguez and other key members of his “interim administration” were in constant communication with their U.S. counterparts and were “extremely cooperative.” Pointing out that five US citizens were released from Venezuelan prisons this week, he said, “So far, they have fulfilled all the demands and requests of the United States and the president.”
Leavitt said Trump “hopes” to see new elections in Venezuela “one day.” “But I don’t have an updated calendar for you today,” he added.
Rodríguez expressed willingness to restart U.S.-Venezuela relations in his annual state of the union speech in Caracas on behalf of Maduro on Thursday.
Addressing an audience that included Maduro’s son and three sisters, Rodríguez called Trump’s invasion “the biggest stain on U.S.-Venezuela relations to date” and said Washington had “crossed the red line” by invading the South American country, killing Venezuelans and “kidnapping” the president.
However, Rodríguez said he was ready to go to Washington to engage in a “diplomatic war” with the United States.
“Venezuela has the right to establish relations with China, Russia, Cuba, Iran and the United States,” he told lawmakers and military commanders gathered in the national assembly.
Despite Trump’s recent claim that he is “ruling” Venezuela, Rodríguez added, “If one day it falls to me to go to Washington as acting president, I will do it standing tall, not crawling.”
