Venezuela’s leading opposition figure made a solemn request to House lawmakers during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week: “Tell the president that I want to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” said María Corina Machado, according to notes taken by a person in the room and reviewed by The Washington Post. Source link
María Corina Machado handed off her Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump at a White House meeting Thursday, despite the Norwegian Nobel Institute saying prizes are not transferable. The plaque containing the medal, stated the gift was a “presented as a personal symbol of gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan people in recognition of President Trump’s principled and decisive action to secure a free Venezuela.” Trump thanked Machado on social media saying receiving her award was “such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” Machado first announced she would give the prize to Trump in a Jan. 6 Fox News interview. Two days later, in Trump’s first interview since the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he said he would accept the prize from Machado. “That would be a great honor,” Trump said, including the misleading claim that he “ended eight wars.” “A Nobel Prize can neither be revoked, shared, nor transferred to others. Once the announcement has been made, the decision stands for all time,” the Nobel Peace Prize center said in a Jan. …
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado waves to supporters outside the White House following a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on January 15, 2026 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images Norwegian lawmakers reacted with shock and dismay over Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado’s decision to present U.S. President Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal. “It’s completely unheard of,” Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor of international politics at the University of Oslo and former state secretary in the foreign affairs ministry, told public broadcaster NRK on Friday. She called Machado’s gesture “disrespectful” and “pathetic,” saying it undermined the value of the prize, which the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards annually. Raymond Johansen, a Norwegian lawmaker for the center-left Labour Party and former governing mayor of Oslo, said in a Facebook post it was “incredibly embarrassing and damaging to one of the world’s most respected and important prizes,” according to a Google translation. Machado, who met Trump at the White House for the …
