Venezuela’s opposition leader says she presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize
María Corina Machado visited the White House, hoping to persuade President Donald Trump to support elections in Venezuela after the U.S. ousted leader Nicolás Maduro.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lost out on the Nobel Peace Prize, yet in a rare confluence of geopolitics and chance, he may have wound up with the 18-karat gold medal nonetheless.
María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 prize, said she presented the medal to Trump during a private meeting at the White House on Thursday, in appreciation for deposing Venezuela’s repressive leader, Nicolás Maduro, in a U.S. military raid on Jan. 3.
It was not immediately clear if Trump accepted the gift.
After an event at the White House, Trump told NBC News that his meeting with Machado was “great.” He did not respond when asked if he’d taken the award.
Machado’s offer is mostly symbolic; it does not make Trump the official winner of the prestigious prize. The Norwegian Nobel Institute has already stated that the award is non-transferable and that Machado remains the winner for all time.
The prize can’t be shared or transferred, the institute said.
Yet, with the medal in hand, Machado was always free to dispose of it as she chose. She had already dedicated the prize to Trump, crediting his support for her democratic movement.
The Nobel selection committee had honored Machado for promoting democratic rights in Venezuela.
In giving her the award, the committee bypassed Trump, for whom the Nobel Peace Prize has become something of a fixation.
Machado spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill after a meeting with senators late Thursday afternoon and drew a historical parallel in explaining why she wanted Trump to keep her medal.
Just as Marquis de Lafayette, an American Revolutionary War hero, had given a gift to Simon Bolivar, who led a liberation movement in South America 200 years ago, Machado said she wanted to similarly honor Trump for freeing Venezuela.
She told reporters that “the people of Bolivar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal, in this case a medal of the Nobel Peace Prize as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”
A certain convergence of interests underpinned the meeting between Trump and Machado. Each had something the other wanted.
Machado hopes to some day head a Venezuelan government whose leaders are decided through the ballot box. For that, she needs Trump to usher in a democratic transition.
And Trump wants recognition for his peacemaking efforts. He says he deserves not one but multiple Nobel prizes for the various wars he says he has ended through his intervention.
For now, though, the president has kept Machado sidelined. Trump is relying, instead, on remnants of Maduro’s regime to lead the country day to day, backing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, for the country’s top job. In the hours after the raid, Trump called Machado a “very nice woman” but said she lacked “respect” within the country.
In a press briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump is satisfied with the compliance he’s gotten so far from Rodriguez.
“They have been extremely cooperative,” Leavitt said. “They have thus far met all of the demands and requests of the United States and of the president.”
In an interview last week, Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked Machado whether she had offered her prize to Trump.
“It hasn’t happened yet,” she said, adding that the peace prize truly belonged to the Venezuelan people, “who certainly want to give it to him and share it with him.”
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While Trump did not say whether he’d accepted the prize from her, he has already taken a luxury jet from Qatar that he intends to use as a replacement for the Boeing 747 known as Air Force One.
“If she wants to gift him something, he’s not one to refuse a gift,” a second senior White House official said in an interview Wednesday.
Robert O’Brien, who was White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term, said ahead of the meeting: “I think it would be brilliant on her part to do it. It would certainly be a real sign of good faith, thanks and gratitude for him getting rid of Maduro and giving her and the opposition a shot. Trump took a big risk in doing that.”
“The Nobel Peace Prize Committee came out and said she can’t do it, but she can do whatever she wants,” O’Brien continued. “Are they going to take the money away?” (The peace prize winner receives about $1.2 million, in addition to the gold medal and a certificate.)
A number of world leaders and American lawmakers have formally nominated Trump for the 2026 prize. A five-person committee appointed by Norway’s parliament will sift through the candidates and announce its decision in October.
As Trump has no Nobel to his name, his unhappiness seems to be growing more pronounced. He said this month that it’s an “embarrassment” to Norway that he hasn’t won the award.
Such complaints aren’t likely to sweeten his chances of winning the award directly, said Marc Nathanson, who was ambassador to Norway during the Biden administration.
“The Norwegians are extremely honest and transparent,” he said in an interview. “If you go to a restaurant — even if you’re an ambassador — you have to wait your turn. It’s that type of society.”
Kåre Aas, Norway’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2013 to 2020, said that, if anything, Trump’s chances of being named the winnerthis year have dimmed. He mentioned Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland, a territory of Denmark.
“Annexing Greenland and threatening European countries doesn’t at all strengthen President Trump’s chances to get the award,” Aas said in an interview.
A proper response from an American president who isoffered someone else’s Nobel prize would be to graciously decline, said Lewis Lukens, a senior official in the U.S. Embassy in London during Trump’s first term.
“If it were any other president, they’d say: ‘Thank you so much. That’s very kind of you, but this is an award that was given to you. Please don’t leave it here. It’s yours. I refuse to accept it,’” Lukens said. “But I can totally see Trump saying: ‘Thank you very much. I deserve it, and I’m going to keep it.’”
Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker and author of a book called “Understanding Trump,” also expected Trump to accept the award if Machado offered it.
“I suspect she will offer it to him, and I suspect he’ll put it somewhere in the Oval Office,” Gingrich said in an interview. “It’s a Trump move.”
“Trump is a unique person who has enormous strengths and occasional moments when you wonder, ‘What’s going on?’” Gingrich added.
What Trump would do with the gift is another question. Would Machado’s award stay in the White House? Go to his presidential library, where the Qatari jet appears headed after his term ends?
President Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize from 1906 now hangs in the Roosevelt Room, a few paces from the Oval Office. That would be a fitting location for Machado’s award, O’Brien said.
Said Gingrich: “I just watch with amazement to see what happens next.”
