María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, gifted her Nobel to U.S. President Donald Trump in a Jan. 15 White House meeting. Trump has long coveted the prize, something that seemingly stems from his — and the Republican Party’s — annoyance by former President Barack Obama’s 2009 award. This has been one of Trump’s obsessions for some time, and his lackeys have been more than willing to nominate him for a variety of diplomatic initiatives.
Despite those nominations, the Norwegian organizations responsible for selecting winners have refused to give Trump what he wants. So, in classic Trump fashion, he’s decided to just take it. Finally, at long last, Donald J. Trump has his Nobel Peace Prize — and all he had to do to get it was invade a country and kidnap its leader.
The sequence of events that lead Machado to give her Nobel to Trump began on Jan. 3, when the United States invaded Venezuela and captured Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president. The Trump regime’s official, legal justification for this raid — which left at least 100 people dead — was that Maduro operated as a “narco-terrorist” who led a cocaine-trafficking cartel. However, it soon became clear the invasion of Venezuela was, at least in part, for the same reason that U.S. seems to invade any nation: Oil.
Nicolás Maduro is, in fairness, an evil dictator. He has been condemned by human rights organizations and international investigators as an authoritarian leader whose government maintains power through intimidation, imprisonment and violence. A United Nations fact-finding mission documented what it describes as “grave human rights violations and crimes against humanity” committed under Maduro’s rule, including abuses carried out by state security forces. Human Rights Watch has reported patterns of arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances and killings, with political repression aimed at crushing dissent and fearfully policing public life. Amnesty International likewise has documented systematic abuses — including torture and ill-treatment of child detainees and sweeping crackdowns on protesters and critics.
One of Maduro’s most stringent opponents amid all of this was María Corina Machado. Machado had been an opponent of Maduro dating back to Maduro’s vice presidency under the late Hugo Chavez. In 2002, she founded a volunteer civil organization called Súmate (Spanish for “Join Up”) that focused on monitoring the fairness and validity of Venezuelan elections. In 2003, that organization forced a recall referendum that revoked the remainer of Chavez’s presidential term. Chavez survived that recall, and Machado faced charges of treason.
From 2004 to the present, Machado has continually worked to oust the Chavez-Maduro regime, including running against Maduro for the presidency in 2012 (she lost the primary) and 2024 (the Venezuelan Supreme Court disqualified her candidacy). While unable to run for the presidency, there was a general consensus that, should her party win, she would function as the nation’s de facto leader.
Nicolás Maduro lost the 2024 Venezuelan election in a landslide. Despite this, the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner in a narrow victory. Machado was forced into hiding, writing in the Wall Street Journal to urge the international community to “reject authoritarianism and support democracy.” It was based on this continued push for democracy at great personal cost that she received the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
“Maria Corina Machado committed the cardinal sin of being recognized as more qualified than Donald Trump.”
This takes us now to January 2026 when Maduro was captured by the United States, leaving Venezuela’s future leadership in question. Trump had declared himself the “acting president of Venezuela,” sharing a doctored screenshot of his Wikipedia page. He declared the United States would run Venezuela and transition it to new leadership.
And here’s where Machado saw her opportunity. It was her party that had legitimately won the previous presidential election. She had been pressing for democratic regime change in Venezuela for 25 years. If only she could get in Trump’s good graces.
Her only problem is that she had won his coveted prize. Prior to the 2025 awards, Trump had ranted that it would be a “big insult” if he didn’t win. After Machado’s win, the White House criticized it as “politics over peace” while Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, accused the Nobel committee of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and saying Trump won the Nobel “in our hearts.”
Maria Corina Machado committed the cardinal sin of being recognized as more qualified than Donald Trump.
Speaking to the Washington Post, an unnamed source close to the White House said: “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today.” Perhaps hearing that conversation, Machado made what appears to be a political calculation: She gave her award to Donald Trump. In return, he gave her … MAGA merch.
Machado was publicly unfazed, saying she believed she would be her country’s next president after a fair election.
Knut Hamsun
In a way, you have to commend Machado. Seeing a chance for long-sought power, she took it — even if it meant debasing herself on the international stage. But history had a lesson for her, if only she had known or heeded it.
Only once before has a Nobel Prize been given away to another individual. The year was 1944 and Nazi Germany had occupied Norway for four years. Norwegian author Knut Hamsun — a Nazi supporter — nonetheless disagreed with the way the Nazi government was treating Norwegian prisoners of war.
Hamsun’s biographer, Thorkild Hansen, writes in Processen mod Hamsun (The Trial of Hamsun) that the Norwegian writer thought if he could just gain an audience with Hitler, he would be able to get him to replace the leaders of the occupation government. In a meeting with Joseph Goebbels, Hamsun gifted Goebbels his Nobel Prize for Literature.
“For Christians, the tragedy here is not merely political, it’s theological.”
He got his audience with Hitler. But he did not get what he asked for.
Machado may think she’s playing politics, but history shows what happens when moral symbols are offered to immoral men: They don’t change the man, they cheapen the symbol. Hamsun handed his Nobel to Goebbels to gain access to Hitler; Machado handed hers to Trump to gain leverage in a new Venezuela.
For Christians, the tragedy here is not merely political, it’s theological. Jesus never taught his followers to win liberation by flattering Caesar, and Scripture warns us against trusting princes, even when they promise deliverance. When the world’s symbols of moral authority are treated as bargaining chips for access to empire and power, they lose their value and purpose.
Machado may believe she is protecting Venezuela’s future, but when we sacrifice integrity at the feet of ego and empire, we reenact the oldest temptation of power: “All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me.”
Josh Olds
Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the forthcoming small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.
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