Donald Trump spent much of 2025 begging for a Nobel Peace Prize that he clearly didn’t deserve. The pleas did not work. The Norwegian Nobel Committee instead announced in October that it was honoring Venezuela’s María Corina Machado with the award.
The president did not take it well. In the days and weeks that followed, he continued to whine, publicly and privately, about the perceived slight. Late last week at a White House meeting with oil executives to discuss exploiting Venezuela’s oil reserves after Trump’s bombing operation, the American president took the time to boast with a straight face, “I can’t think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me.”
Take that, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.
As part of the same event, Trump added that the nation of Norway “is very embarrassed” about the failure to give him the award he sought, pointing to attitudes that appear to only exist in his imagination.
But those weren’t his only provocative thoughts on the subject. A day earlier, the Republican sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, and the discussion turned to Machado. Trump said that he’d heard Machado — who’s eager to lead her home country and who’s taken steps to curry favor with the Republican administration — wants to give him the prize, and that it would be “a great honor.”
It was at that point that the officials responsible for the award apparently felt the need to issue a clarification of sorts. The Associated Press reported:
The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize is throwing cold water on talk of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado giving her recent award to President Donald Trump.
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Once the Nobel Peace Prize is announced, it can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said in a short statement on Friday.
“The decision is final and stands for all time,” the institute explained in a written statement.
It was, as best as I can tell, the first time in the 125-year history of the award that the Nobel Prize committee found it necessary to issue such a clarification. It also led The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum to note, summarizing the circumstances, “It’s hard even to comprehend how stupid this has become.”
The White House told reporters that Machado is scheduled to meet with Trump on Thursday.
Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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