One of the more nauseating sights these last few days has been the way that this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Trump have been acting. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado initially accepted the prize and this apparently really ticked off Trump who seems to have made it one of his major life goals to get the prize. He was so incensed that Machado got it that he supposedly rejected installing her as president of Venezuela after his attack on that country and the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, even though Machado fulsomely praised Trump for his assault on Venezuela’s sovereignty.
Machado, seeing her chance of becoming president slipping away because of Trump’s childish pique, tried to ingratiate herself with him even more by ‘presenting’ Trump with the prize at their meeting at the White House.
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has presented her gold Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump after meeting him in the White House, nearly a fortnight after he ordered the abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
Machado, who received the award last year for her struggle against Maduro’s “brutal, authoritarian state”, told reporters on Thursday she had done so “in recognition [of] his unique commitment [to] our freedom”.
Several hours later, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Machado “presented me with her Nobel peace prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
A photograph circulated later by the White House showed the US president with the gift displayed in a large frame. Inside the gold frame beneath the medal, a text read: “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.”
This makes both of them look like sad losers. How pathetic must you be to pressure someone to give you a prize that was awarded to them? And how pathetic must you be to give a prize that was awarded to you to someone else in order to ingratiate yourself with them? It has been made abundantly clear by the peace prize committee that while the winners of the prize can do what they like with the physical medal, that does not mean that whoever they give it to is now considered the winner. There seems to a sense of incredulity about this circus.
A sense of disbelief gripped Norwegian media and expert community following news that Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado gave her award medal to US President Donald Trump, who had been hankering after the accolade.
“That’s completely unheard of,” Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor with the University of Oslo and a former politician, told public broadcaster NRK. “It’s a total lack of respect for the award, on her part,” she said, calling the act “meaningless” and “pathetic.”
…The award cannot be shared or transferred, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement last week. It didn’t respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment on Friday.
…“This is unbelievably embarrassing and damaging to one of the world’s most recognized and important prizes,” Raymond Johansen, a former Oslo mayor with the ruling Labor Party said in a Facebook post. “The awarding of the prize is now so politicized and potentially dangerous that it could easily legitimize an anti-peace prize development.”
In other words, the whole thing is a farce.
The Peace Prize committee had already lost a lot of respect because of having given it in the past to some truly awful people. Trump would easily be the worst person to ever get the award (which is saying a lot considering that war criminal Henry Kissinger also got it) but that does not mean that the committee might not have been considering giving it to him some time in the future. But by acting this way, Trump may have harmed his chances since if they now give it to him, it would look like they are even more craven and were bullied into doing so,
The whole thing is trivial and makes Trump and Machado look utterly pathetic. With apologies to William Shakespeare and the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, one might even say that it is Machado over nothing.
She kept the money.
Yes, enough to make one’s gorge rise (and riiiiise).
On the other hand, sometimes I am in awe at Alzheimer Don’s talent for befouling everything he touches. He truly is a dung generator of unparalleled power and enthropy, AND he has scads of admirers. Maybe they like shit?
Oy, my head hurts.
I expect that soon Trump will be bragging about how he “won” the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping all those wars.
The War Prize has been a laughingstock for a long time. Still, the Nobel Committee made the second-most-cowardly choice besides explicitly handing the prize to Trump and gave it to his State-Department- and CIA-favored stooge in Venezuela instead. (But apparently not so favored anymore. Oh how capricious the support of Washington is!)
That she then decided to hand it over to Trump is fitting. It was always supposed to be the Nobel Committee’s plausibly deniable approval of Trump’s methods.
I think it was a mistake but I don’t mind Machado’s position here. If she honestly thought it would help save the country who wouldn’t hand over a medal? Her mistake is thinking that giving in to Trump’s demands will help her or Venezuela. Trump isn’t a gang leader who demands things in exchange for favors any more, his ego is too big and his mental capacity too decayed. He is a fickle dictator who simply demands things from those he can threaten. Giving in to his demands may get you a favor or it may not, depending on his mood. It does set you up for more demands down the road, once you show you will give in easily he will demand more as soon as you have anything he wants.
Now I have an image of Rat standing on Mano’s desk chastising him while Mano looks shamefaced.
“Giving Trump the Nobel peace prize medal is ‘absurd’, say Norwegian politicians”
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/16/maria-corina-machado-giving-trump-nobel-peace-prize-medal-absurd-say-norwegian-politicians
-Question: can I post more than one link in a comment? There are *a lot* of overseas media commenting on this.
Trump gets a shiny trinket with no significance attached to it as the history books will still show it was not awarded to him. The Nobel Peace Prize’s reputation is cheapened some more. Machado loses a shiny trinket and what dignity she had. All for the slender chance Trump will remember to repay her with a favour in the future.
#7 birger
I think three links triggers the blog’s built in moderation setting, keeping the comment from public view until Mano approves it.
@5, JM: there’s lots of film of Trump’s poo-eating grin at getting the prize and now he’s singing Machado’s praises. So, giving the demented baby-man what he wanted was a gamble and for now it seems to be working. Here’s my thinking: If my country’s fishermen working just off the coas were being bombed for absolutely no reason, and elderly, harmless women are being killed in their beds from random bombing of cities, and I had something that idiot values to keep my people safe, wouldn’t I give it?
Of course even if this works, it only works until it doesn’t, but it bought Venezuela more time to think up something else.
The Onion: Giddy Trump Struts All Around White House With Nobel Peace Price In Mouth
.
Jimmy Kimmel:
Trump Finally Gets His Nobel Peace Prize, Floats Skipping Midterms & Fans the Flames of Violence
[The Nobel stuff begins at 8.30]
birgerjohansson @#7,
Holms @#9 is correct that any single comment that has more than three links is automatically flagged by the software as potential spam and sent to me for moderation.
Machado has called for wholesale privatization of publicly-owned corporations in Venezuela in the name of “popular cpaitalism”, which we know from numerous examples means massive redistribution in favour of the rich. She has expressed admiration for and agreement with not only Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump but also Javier Milei. In February 2025, she addressed a “Patriots for Europe” rally in Madrid. Patriots for Europe is a far-right grouping in the European Parliament, including Fidesz of Hungary (Orbán’s party), Germany’s AfD, France’s Rassemblement National (Marine Le Pen’s party), Italy’s Lega, Netherland’s Party for Freedom (Geert Wilders’ party), Spain’s Vox and a collection of other vile racist and proto-fascist groups. It’s quite likely that if she ever becomes president of Venezuela, she will be worse than Maduro. To be fair, however, she herself has said that Edmundo González, who fought the 2024 election after Machado was prevented from running (and according to most observers, won a clear majority of the vote) is the rightful president. González has been described as a “centrist”.
I think they should share the Most Pathetic prize.
#12 Mano
Hmm, I thought it was three links but you say it is more than three. Here is a test…
http://www.firefox.com
http://www.firefox.com
http://www.firefox.com
Mano will have to be the one to say if it was moderated or not.
Holms @#15,
Your comment went through without moderation by me.