Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is leading a demonstration this Friday against the re-inauguration of authoritarian President Maduro.
Jesus Vargas | Photo Alliance | Getty Images
The White House criticized the Nobel Committee on Friday after it declined to pick President Donald Trump for the organization's vaunted Peace Prize.
But the actual recipient of the award, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said she dedicated the award to Trump in part for supporting her efforts to promote democracy in her country.
Machado said in an X post that her cause for achieving freedom and democracy depends on Trump and other key allies.
“I dedicate this award to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” she wrote.
Machado's shout came less than three hours after White House communications director Steven Cheung claimed that by censuring Trump, “the Nobel Committee proved that they put politics above peace.”
Trump has said for years that he deserves the prize, which has been awarded more than 100 times by the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1901 to honor one person's work to promote peace.
He has also been openly critical of former President Barack Obama's receipt of the award in 2009.
“They gave it to Obama because he did absolutely nothing but destroy our country,” Trump said Thursday.
In recent months, Trump has often said he has ended seven wars — a claim disputed by fact-checkers.
After Israel and Hamas agreed this week on the first phase of a peace plan, Trump claimed: “This would be number eight.”
Some of Trump's Republican allies have advocated for him to receive the award, even though the nomination deadline for the 2025 award expired less than two weeks into his current presidential term.
