The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize has put the brakes on the notion that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado could share or transfer her award with President Donald Trump.
In a statement provided to news outlets Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Institute came back with a firm response after Machado suggested earlier in the week she might transfer the prestigious award to President Trump.
“Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others,” the institute said in a statement. “The decision is final and stands for all time.”
Machado talked about the prize after prime-time commentator Sean Hannity brought up the idea she might give the president the award since she had dedicated it to the him after the honor was announced on October 10.
“Did you at any point offer to give him the Nobel Peace Prize?” Hannity asked. “Did that actually happen?”
“Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” she said.
Ana Corina Sosa, daughter of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, steps up to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her mother at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony at Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2025 in Oslo, Norway. (Odd ANDERSEN / AFP via Getty Images)
Machado continued, “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 — certainly 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.”
Winners of a Nobel Prize receive a medal, a diploma and a monetary award, which in recent years has been amounting to approximately one million in U.S. dollars.
Machado was exceptionally supportive of the Trump administration’s successful arrest and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The couple facing drug trafficking charges in New York.
In an appearance Thursday on Fox on Hannity President Trump was asked whether he would accept the Nobel Prize from the opposition leader.
“I’ve heard that she wants to do that,” Trump responded. “That would be a great honor.”
He added it was “a major embarrassment to Norway” that he did not win the prize.
Trump said he plans to meet with the Venezuelan opposition leader in Washington this week, though he has previously said he could not support her leading the country.
“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader,” he said earlier this month. “She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”
It’s been reported that the administration decided backing her would require a U.S. military presence in Venezuela. According to the New York Times earlier this month:
The president had been persuaded by arguments from senior officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said that if the United States tried to back the opposition, it could further destabilize the country and require a more robust military presence inside the country. A classified C.I.A. intelligence analysis reflected that view, as well, according to a person familiar with the document.
And even though Ms. Machado has gone out of her way to please Mr. Trump, in reality her relationship with the White House had been fraying for months. Senior U.S. officials had grown frustrated with her assessments of Mr. Maduro’s strength, feeling that she provided inaccurate reports that he was weak and on the verge of collapse.
Machado led a successful election campaign in 2024 against Maduro but Venezuela’s highest court barred her from participating in the election, though she had widespread public support.
Instead, Trump has backed former vice president and now acting President Delcy Rodriguez, a Maduro loyalist, who reportedly has been cooperating with the U.S., particularly on the administration’s plan to revitalize Venezuela’s oil industry.
In December, Machado reportedly left Venezuela where she had been in hiding and apparently has been living in Norway in an undisclosed location since receiving the prize.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more
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