Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she “presented” to Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize she won—and which he has coveted.
Machado, who met with the president in the Oval Office on Thursday, has not received Trump’s endorsement to replace President Nicolás Maduro, whom U.S. forces captured and brought to New York for an arraignment on drug and weapons-related charges. But Thursday’s gesture may grease the wheels toward that end.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Trump posted about the meeting on his Truth Social on Thursday, calling it a “Great Honor.”
“She is a wonderful woman who has been through so much,” he said. “María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”
Trump was offended by Machado not turning down the award, The Washington Post reported.
“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,” one source told the newspaper.
Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize on Oct. 10. The Nobel Committee cited her “long-standing struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in Venezuela as the reason for offering her the honor."
The Venezuelan opposition leader was unable to receive the award in person at the Dec. 10 ceremony after being forced into hiding by Maduro, who sought to imprison her as part of a widespread campaign to arrest his political opponents after he lost Venezuela’s 2024 election and refused to leave office. Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the Nobel Prize on her behalf.
Even if Trump indeed has the physical prize in his possession, Machado’s move might just be cosmetic.
A Nobel Institute spokesperson previously told the Daily Beast: “A Nobel Prize can neither be revoked nor transferred to others. Once the announcement of the laureate(s) has been made, the decision stands for all time. As for the prize money, the laureate(s) are free to dispose of it as they see fit.”
Trump, who lobbied heavily for the award, had to settle for the vastly lesser “FIFA Peace Prize” instead.
The soccer organization’s president, Gianni Infantino, reportedly hatched the idea after his pal lost out to Machado.
But the governance nonprofit FairSquare has asked a FIFA ethics watchdog to look into the matter.
“Mr. Infantino’s engagement with President Trump must be underpinned by and in conformity with his duty of neutrality, which requires that he be non-partisan and impartial on matters of US domestic and foreign policy, unless speaking about issues that invoke FIFA’s own legal or human rights responsibilities,” the advocacy group wrote in a letter last month, per The Athletic.
“In offering clear support for President Trump’s political agenda at home and abroad, Mr Infantino has breached that duty, and done so in a way that poses a clear threat to the integrity and reputation of football and of FIFA itself.”
