President Donald Trump met with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado at the White House on Thursday, Jan. 15. After the closed-door meeting, Machado told Fox News she presented Trump with her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
“I presented the President of the United States the medal, the peace, the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said, calling it a gesture “in recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”
The White House has not clarified whether Trump accepted what Machado described as her award.
Days earlier, the Nobel Committee issued a public warning saying a Nobel Peace Prize cannot be handed over to someone else — even if a laureate wants to do so.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute receive a number of requests for comments regarding the permanence of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s status,” the committee said in a Jan. 9 news release. “The facts are clear and well established. Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.”
The statement followed a Jan. 8 interview in which Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump about reports that Machado wanted to give him her Nobel Peace Prize.
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“I’ve heard that she wants to do that,” Trump said. “That would be a great honor.”
Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize for what was described as her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” and her efforts to pursue “a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
In a Jan. 4 report by The Washington Post, sources said Machado’s decision to accept the prize may have damaged her prospects of leading Venezuela after the Trump administration’s capture of President Nicolás Maduro in the early hours of Jan. 3.
Trump was later asked about installing Machado as Venezuela’s new leader following Maduro’s capture. He said “it’d be very tough for her” to lead, claiming she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.”
Despite Machado publicly dedicating her prize to Trump — who has repeatedly said he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating solutions to multiple “unendable wars” — her initial decision to accept the award was seen inside the White House as an “ultimate sin,” a White House source told The Washington Post.
“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” the source said.
