US President Donald Trump on Friday said that Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado had called him after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
The White House had, earlier in the day, said the Nobel Committee had chosen “politics over peace”, criticising the decision to grant the peace prize to the Venezuelan Opposition leader.
Trump had in the past repeatedly expressed his desire to win the award, while claiming that he had brokered several international ceasefire deals.
When asked about the Nobel on Friday evening, Trump said that Machado had called him and said that he “deserved” to win.
“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me, and said, ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it,” Trump said, adding that it was a “very nice thing to do.”
He further said that Machado would have given him the award if he had asked. “I didn’t say, ‘Then give it to me,’ though I think she might have. She was very nice,” he said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, while granting the award to Machado, had cited “courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist” authoritarian leadership.
Machado dedicates Nobel win to Trump
After being granted the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado dedicated the win to the US President. “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” Machado said in a post on X.
“We are on the threshold of victory and today more than ever we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” Machado said in another post.
Following the announcement of the prize, the White House said that Trump would “continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives.”
“He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a post on X.
