Trump reacted to missing out on the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, saying the actual winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, personally called to say she accepted the award “in honour of” him. He praised Machado as “very nice” and said he had been helping her “along the way.”
Machado, who has been hiding from President Nicolás Maduro’s government since being cancelled from Venezuela’s 2024 elections, publicly dedicated her Nobel win to both the Venezuelan people and President Trump.
“I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” she posted on X.
Trump says Nobel Peace prize winner dedicated award to him
“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called me today and said, “I am accepting this in honour of you because you really deserved it.’ A very nice thing to do,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. He added, “I didn’t say then give it to me though! I think she might have, she was very nice and I have been helping her along the way.”
When asked why he thought the Nobel Committee didn’t pick him, Trump joked that it was probably because the 2025 award was based on last year’s work, during which he was busy campaigning for the Presidential position. “I’m happy because I saved millions of lives,” he said.
Trump reiterates India-Pak claim
Trump also repeated his claim that he helped negotiate peace across several regions, including India and Pakistan, Israel and Gaza, and parts of Africa. According to him, his “trade talks” helped stop the war between India and Pakistan earlier this year after “seven planes were shot down.”
“They were two nuclear powers,” Trump said. “I told them we’d put very big tariffs if they didn’t stop fighting. They stopped.” India, however, has repeatedly and publicly denied Trump’s version of events multiple times. Pakistan, on the other hand, voted for him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The White House reacts: ‘Politics Over Peace’
After Trump was snubbed, the White House’s communications director Steven Cheung accused the Nobel Committee of placing politics over peace. “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives,” Cheung said on X, calling him “a humanitarian with the power to move mountains.”
Officials also mentioned that Trump’s ceasefire deal in Gaza, announced just two days before the Nobel was awarded, showed his efforts for global peace. The White House even referred to him as “the peace president.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, meanwhile, said Machado was chosen for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.” The committee praised her for staying in the country despite threats to her life and an arrest warrant. her a “symbol of hope and civilian strength.”
Machado, 58, has been a leading voice for democratic reform and was nominated in August 2024 by a group of US Congress members, including Marco Rubio, who is now Trump’s secretary of state.Trump’s ambitions for the Nobel Peace Prize aren’t new. He’s mentioned it in several speeches, including at the UN General Assembly, and many foreign leaders, among them Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have argued he deserves it. MAGA supporters, meanwhile, were furious. Conservative commentator Jack Posobiec called the prize a “globalist snub,” while others like Sean Davis of The Federalist said the Nobel was “beneath Trump’s dignity.”