Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is leading a demonstration this Friday against the reinauguration of authoritarian President Maduro.
Jesus Vargas | Alliance in pictures | Getty Images
The White House lamented Friday that President Donald Trump was snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize because the committee responsible for awarding the prize placed “politics before peace.”
But the prize’s real recipient, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said she was dedicating the award in part to Trump for his support of her country’s democracy promotion efforts.
Machado said in an X-post that his cause for achieving freedom and democracy depends on Trump and other key allies.
“I dedicate this award to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” she wrote.
Machado’s cries come less than three hours after White House communications director Steven Cheung claimed that by snubbing Trump, “the Nobel Committee has proven that it puts politics before peace.”
Trump reportedly called Machado on Friday to congratulate her on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump has said for years that he deserves the prize, awarded more than 100 times by the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1901 to honor a person’s work for peace.
He also openly criticized the fact that former President Barack Obama received the award in 2009.
“They gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country,” Trump said Thursday.
In recent months, Trump has often said he has ended seven wars — a claim that has been disputed by fact-checkers.
After Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a peace plan this week, Trump said, “It would be the eighth phase.”
A number of Trump’s Republican allies have advocated for him to get the award, although the nomination deadline for the 2025 award expired less than two weeks into his current presidential term.
Asked about campaigning for Trump, Nobel committee chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes said his panel was used to receiving media attention and “thousands and thousands of letters” every year.
“This committee sits in a room full of portraits of all the honorees and this room is filled with both courage and integrity,” Frydnes said at a news conference.
“We base our decision solely on the work and will of Alfred Nobel.”
