Venezuelan Opposition Leader Makes Desperate Offer To Trump After He Rules Her Out As New Leader—And Yikes

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient María Corina Machado seems to have made a desperate attempt to curry favor with President Donald Trump after she told Fox News she wants to give him her award after he invaded Venezuela and ousted dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Trump told reporters this week that while Machado was a “very nice woman,” she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to lead Venezuela, sparking concerns that his remarks were driven by personal resentment, particularly after Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize instead of him.

Machado, who was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election but helped mobilize support behind opposition candidate Edmundo González, responded by urging Venezuelans to prepare for demonstrations.

She called on the military to respect the results of the July 2024 election—despite Maduro’s declared victory, ballot machine data showed González won by a 2-to-1 margin—and demanded that González be allowed to take office and safely return from exile in Spain.

Now, sources tell The Washington Post that Trump refused to install her because she didn't turn down the honor he covets, thus committing the ultimate sin” of offending Trump's pride. One source went so far as to say that “If she [Machado] had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today."

And Machado seems desperate to win Trump's favor, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity the following when he asked her to confirm reports that she had offered to give Trump the Nobel Peace Prize she won:

“It hasn't happened yet but I certainly would love to be able to personally tell him that we believe — the Venezuelan people, because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people, want to give it to him and share it with him."

"What he has done is historic. It's a huge step towards a democratic transition."

You can hear what she said in the video below.

People were not impressed with her groveling.

Trump has signaled he would recognize Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as Venezuela’s interim president.

Rodríguez herself has “invited the US government to work together on an agenda of cooperation," dialing back remarks she made shortly after assuming the role of Acting President that Venezuela would “never again be anyone’s colony."

Her change of tune came after Trump told The Atlantic that she could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she did not bend to his wishes. Trump said at a press conference on Saturday that “we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years."

However, those remarks do not indicate support for a democratic transition.

Trump later told reporters aboard Air Force One that he alerted not Congress but the oil companies "before and after" invading Venezuela. He described these communications as crucial to “fix the infrastructure” in Venezuela after decades of corruption and mismanagement.