Donald Trump has been saying he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for years. Yesterday, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado handed Trump her medal she received earlier this year, but is that really how it works? The Nobel Peace Center has issued a rare statement clarifying whether Trump can accept the award.
Donald Trump has long wanted the Nobel Peace Prize. In recent months, as the 2025 year’s prize was set to be announced, the President of the United States ramped up his tone about how he is worth getting it as he stopped “eight wars.”
In October, he even slammed former President Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
“He got a prize for doing nothing,” Trump said. “Obama got a prize, he didn’t even know what he got. He got elected and they gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country.”
Trump added, “He was not a good president,” claiming that his 2024 reelection was “much more important” than Obama’s victory in 2008.
The former real estate mogul didn’t receive the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Just days after his rant about Obama, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the 2025 peace prize would be awarded to Maria Corina Machado.
Donald Trump & the Nobel Peace Prize
Trump was not happy about it. The president raged that it was an “embarrassment” to Norway that he didn’t win, even though the country of Norway as a whole has nothing to do with it.
“I can’t think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me,” Trump ranted.
Now, however, it seems as if Donald Trump finally received “his” Nobel Peace Prize. As Machado visited the US president at the White House on Thursday, she presented him with the medal.
Why is unclear; however, it’s been speculated that it has to do with Machado wanting to make Trump happy and giving him the medal as a signal of good faith for him to work with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez.
Trump handed the Nobel Peace Prize from Machado
“I presented the president of the United States the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado told reporters after leaving the White House, adding that she had done it “as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”
On social media, Trump later said Machado had left the medal to him.
Trump confirmed later on social media that Machado had left the medal for him to keep, and he said it was an honor to meet her.
“She is a wonderful woman who has been through so much. María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done,” Trump said in his post. “Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”
While Donald Trump is praised by many of his MAGA followers for “receiving” the Nobel Peace Prize, others find it very strange.
Speaking with NBC, Lewis Lukens, a senior official in the U.S. Embassy in London during Trump’s first term, said a proper response from an American president who is offered someone else’s Nobel Prize is to graciously decline.
“If it were any other president, they’d say: ‘Thank you so much. That’s very kind of you, but this is an award that was given to you. Please don’t leave it here. It’s yours. I refuse to accept it,’” Lukens stated. “But I can totally see Trump saying: ‘Thank you very much. I deserve it, and I’m going to keep it.’”
Nobel Committee says peace prize “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others.”
So how does it really work? Can Machado actually give away her Nobel Peace Prize? A week ago, the Nobel Committee released a statement on how it works.
The Nobel Committee has taken the rare step to clarify this, with many believing it has shot down any hopes that the president could get the Peace Prize through the back door.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute receive a number of requests for comments regarding the permanence of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s status,” the organization wrote on its website on Friday, January 9.
“The facts are clear and well established. Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.”
The statement read that Machado, the opposition’s presidential candidate in Venezuela in 2024, but was blocked by the Maduro regime, received the Nobel Peace Prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Nobel Peace Center releases rare response
Shortly after Trump received the Peace Prize from Machado, the Nobel Peace Center shared a rare response on X.
The post read that the medal “measures 6.6 cm in diameter, weighs 196 grams and is struck in gold. On its face, a portrait of Alfred Nobel and on its reverse, three naked men holding around each other’s shoulders as a sign of brotherhood. A design unchanged for 120 years.”
The center continued to share that the Nobel Peace Prize “have been passed on” after it has been given, for example, Dmitry Muratov’s medal, “which was auctioned for over USD 100 million to support refugees from the war in Ukraine.”
However, the post concluded, “But one truth remains. As the Norwegian Nobel Committee states: ‘Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.’ A medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot.”
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