Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado walked into the White House on Thursday and handed President Donald Trump her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize medal. The gesture came days after Trump ordered the arrest of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, an operation that led to Maduro’s capture and removal from power. Machado told reporters she gave Trump the medal “as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”

The Norwegian Nobel Institute had already stated publicly that Nobel prizes cannot be transferred or given away. But Machado went ahead anyway, and Trump accepted. He later posted on social media that Machado “presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”

Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025 for her sustained resistance against Maduro’s authoritarian regime. She was barred from running in Venezuela’s 2024 election by Maduro’s government, backed a stand-in candidate who won according to independent ballot audits, and watched as Maduro falsely claimed victory. She became the face of Venezuelan opposition, speaking for millions who suffered under a regime that destroyed the economy, drove millions into exile, and imprisoned dissidents.

Trump’s recent order to arrest Maduro changed everything. The operation succeeded, and Maduro was captured. Venezuelans celebrated in the streets. For Machado, the arrest represented the vindication of years of struggle against a dictator who had seemed untouchable. Her decision to present the medal to Trump was her way of saying the United States under Trump’s leadership had done what the international community had failed to do for years.

The meeting at the White House was complicated. Trump has sidelined Machado in his plans for Venezuela’s future, signaling willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Maduro’s second in command. Trump questioned Machado’s credibility to take over the country. He provided no timetable for elections. Machado left the meeting without specific commitments from Trump about democratic rule in Venezuela.

But Machado still presented the medal. She greeted dozens of cheering supporters near the White House gates afterward, hugging many of them. “We can count on President Trump,” she told them.

Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize multiple times. In 2018, a group of Republican members of Congress nominated him for his work on North Korea. In 2020, Norwegian Parliament member Christian Tybring-Gjedde nominated Trump for brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The same year, Swedish Parliament member Magnus Jacobsson nominated him for the Serbia-Kosovo economic normalization agreement. In 2021, Laura Huhtasaari, a member of the European Parliament from Finland, nominated Trump for the Abraham Accords again. Australian law professors nominated him in 2024 for the same accords.

In July,  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize during a heartfelt meeting at the White House.

In October, families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza appealed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, praising his push to end the Israel–Hamas conflict.

President Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination from Netanyahu followed a similar move by U.S. Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA), who cited Trump’s role in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that ended what has been dubbed the “12-Day War.” That ceasefire, while delicate, remains in effect—another testament to Trump’s ability to make peace where others have failed.

Should Trump receive the Nobel Peace Prize, he would join a select group of U.S. presidents who have received the honor. Only three sitting presidents have won the award: Republican Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 for brokering peace between Russia and Japan, Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1919, and Barack Obama in 2009, who received the award less than nine months into his presidency.

Former President Jimmy Carter was honored in 2002 for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts,” while former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007 for his climate change advocacy.

Pakistan recommended Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, hailing him as a “genuine peacemaker” and lauding his diplomatic intervention during recent tensions between India and Pakistan.

Despite such recognition, Trump has often expressed frustration with the Nobel Committee’s apparent political bias. “I should have gotten it four or five times… They won’t give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals,” Trump said recently on Truth Social.

Trump never won. The 2020 prize went to the World Food Programme. The Abraham Accords, which brought Arab nations into open relations with Israel for the first time in decades, were not recognized by the Nobel Committee with a prize for Trump. Some supporters of Israel saw the omission as evidence of the committee’s political bias against Trump and against normalizing relations with Israel.

Should Trump receive the Nobel Peace Prize, he would join a select group of U.S. presidents who have received the honor. Only three sitting presidents have won the award: Republican Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 for brokering peace between Russia and Japan, Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1919, and Barack Obama in 2009, who received the award less than nine months into his presidency.

Former President Jimmy Carter was honored in 2002 for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts,” while former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007 for his climate change advocacy.

Trump’s supporters argue that his concrete achievements, particularly in the Middle East, far surpass symbolic or premature recognitions of the past.

Machado’s symbolic transfer of her medal to Trump cannot change the formal record. The Norwegian Nobel Institute made clear the prize remains officially hers. But symbols matter. The Bible teaches that physical objects can carry spiritual and political meaning. When the prophet Samuel anointed David as king, he poured oil on David’s head in a private ceremony years before David actually took the throne. “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward” (I Samuel 16:13). The anointing was real even though David’s kingship was not yet recognized publicly.

Machado’s gesture recognized Trump’s role in liberating Venezuela from Maduro. Whether Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize according to the committee’s standards is irrelevant to Venezuelans who spent years under dictatorship. They know who ordered the arrest that freed them. Machado gave Trump her medal because, in her view and in the view of millions of Venezuelans, he earned it by doing what others would not do. The Nobel Committee may never agree, but that will not change how Venezuelans see what happened last week.