Trump Says Machado Accepted Nobel In His Honour, Quips 'Didn’t Tell Her To Give It To Me'

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and President Donald Trump was passed over for the illustrious award despite lobbying from his fellow Republicans,

various world leaders and most importantly, by himself.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honoring Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Machado, however, said she wanted to dedicate the win to Trump, along with the people of her country, as she praised the president for support of her cause.

Her campaign manager Magalli Meda confirmed that Trump congratulated Machado in a phone call Friday.

At the White House later, Trump appeared, as per an Associated Press report, “wistful” but was in high spirits as he again listed the peace efforts he’d made while in office this year, now a frequent theme when he meets the press.

“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called me and said, ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it.’” he said.

“I didn’t say, ‘Then give it to me,’” he added, drawing chuckles from his advisers. “I think she might have. She was very nice.”

He also suggested the award, which has a Feb. 1 deadline for nominations, was given out for 2024 achievements.

“You could also say it was given out for ’24, and I was running for office in ’24,” Trump said.

Machado’s opposition to President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela aligns with the Trump administration’s own stance on Venezuela, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously praised her as “the personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism.”

She was nominated last year by a group that included then-Sen. Marco Rubio, who is now Trump’s secretary of state.

Three sitting US presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Barack Obama in 2009. Jimmy Carter won the prize in 2002, a full two decades after leaving office. Former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007.

Obama, a Democrat who was a focus of Trump’s attacks well before the Republican was elected, won the prize early in his tenure as president.

“They gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country,” Trump said Thursday.