Machado dedicates Nobel Peace Prize to Trump after surprise win

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado dedicated her newly awarded Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump, praising him for his support of her fight for democracy and saying she accepted the honor "in his name and in the name of the Venezuelan people."

Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday despite jockeying from his fellow Republicans, various world leaders and — most vocally — himself.

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Machado was awarded the prize, after she was nominated last year by a group that included then-Sen. Marco Rubio, who is now Trump’s secretary of state. 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."

What they're saying:

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.

The other side:

At the White House later, Trump listed the peace efforts he’d made while in office this year —something that's become a frequent habit as he appears before the media — and was wistful as he spoke about Machado winning.

"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.

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"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.

Dig deeper:

The tone from the White House was much sourer early Friday, shortly after the award was announced. White House communications director Steven Cheung said members of "the Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace" because they didn't recognize Trump, especially after the Gaza ceasefire deal his administration helped strike this week.

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."

Trump, who has long coveted the prestigious prize, has been outspoken about his desire for the honor during both of his presidential terms, particularly lately as he takes credit for ending conflicts around the world. The Republican president has also expressed doubts that the Nobel committee would ever grant him the award.

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Although Trump received nominations for the prize, many of them occurred after the February deadline for the 2025 award, which fell just a week and a half into his second term. His name was, however, put forward in December by Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York, her office said in a statement, for his brokering of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states in 2020.

The backstory:

As one of his reasons for deserving the award, Trump often says he has ended seven wars, though some of the conflicts the president claims to have resolved were merely tensions and his role in easing them is disputed.

But while there is hope for the end to Israel and Hamas’ war, with Israel saying a ceasefire agreement with Hamas came into effect Friday, much remains uncertain about the aspects of the broader plan, including whether and how Hamas will disarm and who will govern Gaza. And little progress seems to have been made in the Russia-Ukraine war, a conflict Trump claimed during the 2024 campaign that he could end in one day.

As Trump pushes for peaceful resolutions to some conflicts abroad, the country he governs remains deeply divided and politically fraught. Trump has kicked off what he hopes to be the largest deportation program in American history to remove immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. He is using the levers of government, including the Justice Department, to go after his perceived political enemies. He has sent the military into U.S. cities over local opposition to stop crime and crack down on immigration enforcement.

Internationally, he also touched off global trade wars with his on-again, off-again tariffs, which he wields as a threat to bend other countries and companies to his will. He asserted presidential war powers by declaring cartels to be unlawful combatants and launching lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean that he alleged were carrying drugs.

The full list of people nominated is secret, but anyone who submits a nomination is free to talk about it. Trump's detractors say supporters, foreign leaders and others are submitting Trump's name for nomination for the prize — and announcing it publicly — not because he deserves it but because they see it as a way to manipulate him and stay in his good graces.