US President Donald Trump said that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado received her Nobel Peace Prize in his honor and that he has been “helping her along the way.”Trump, speaking during a briefing on Saturday, said, “The person who got the Nobel Prize called me today and said, ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it’...I didn’t say, ‘Give it to me’, though. I think she might have… I’ve been helping her along the way… I’m happy because I saved millions of lives…”
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Machado for her efforts to promote democratic rights and achieve a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. The Nobel Committee cited 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.”Trump had actively campaigned for the prize over the past year, calling himself the “president of peace” and repeatedly claiming to have “ended six or seven wars.” In September, he told UN delegates that his “peace record” was unmatched, citing conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and “even Thailand and Cambodia.”The award represents a personal blow to Trump, who has said he “should have gotten [the prize] four or five times” and that “everyone says” he deserves it. It is also a diplomatic setback for Pakistan, one of the countries that formally nominated Trump, portraying him as a “champion of peace.”
