See USAT questions President Trump about Nobel Peace Prize
In response to USA TODAY White House correspondent Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy’s question about the Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump reiterated his claim that he stopped seven wars.
She came. she saw. She made him an offer he couldn’t resist.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Colina Machado presented the newly established 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House on January 15.
White House officials confirmed this to USA TODAY on January 16th.
On January 16, as he was about to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Trump was asked by a reporter why he wanted someone else’s Nobel Prize, to which he replied, “Well, she offered it to me.”
“I thought that was very impressive. She said, ‘You know, you ended eight wars, and there’s no one in history who deserves this award more than you,'” he said. “And I thought that was a very nice attitude. I think she’s a very nice woman, by the way. And we’ll talk again.”
The meeting comes less than two weeks after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on January 3, after he shared a doctored Wikipedia page in a post on Truth Social that identified himself as “Venezuela’s acting president.”
The Nobel laureate appeared to take note of President Trump’s penchant for money when he presented him with an 18-carat gold medal in a large gold frame inscribed with the words, “Thank you for your extraordinary leadership in promoting peace through strength, promoting diplomacy, and defending liberty and property.”
“Maria awarded me the Nobel Peace Prize for my work,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after the January 15 meeting. “What a great gesture of mutual respect. Thank you, Maria!”
Machado, 58, is eyeing a role in Venezuela’s new government, and political watchers believe the gesture is aimed at softening Trump’s stance on him, a supporter of Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. Rodriguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s new interim president last week and has said he wants to work with the U.S. administration.
Maduro and his wife were indicted in federal court in Manhattan on drug trafficking and other charges and have pleaded not guilty. They are in U.S. custody in Brooklyn.
After Machado was blocked from running in the 2024 presidential election by the Maduro government, he supported an alternative opposition candidate, Emundo González Urrutia. Urrutia won, but the regime declared victory.
“Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition, first and foremost, of his work in advancing democracy in Venezuela,” the Nobel Committee said.
The Nobel Committee issued a statement saying, “The Nobel Prize cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to another person. Once announced, the decision remains in effect forever.”
Machado tried to frame her gift in historical perspective. She told the story of how the Marquis de Lafayette, a French military officer who served in George Washington’s Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, gave a medal bearing a portrait of Washington, the first president of the United States, to Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan soldier who fought against Spain in 1825.
“For 200 years, the Bolivarian people have returned the medal to Washington’s successor,” she said. “In this case, the Nobel Peace Prize medal in recognition of his unique commitment to our freedom.”
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is USA TODAY’s White House correspondent. You can follow her at X @SwapnaVenugopal.
