Trump jokes that Nobel winner Machado personally called.

Trump jokes that Nobel winner Machado personally called.

White House slammed Nobel Committee for honoring Machado, while Trump claimed he deserved it for brokering multiple global peace deals.

Trump Jokes Nobel Winner Machado ‘Called to Thank Him’: “I Didn’t Say, Give It to Me”

Washington, D.C. —
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said that newly crowned Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado had personally called him to say she was accepting the prize in his honor — a claim that came just hours after the White House blasted the Nobel Committee for “choosing politics over peace.”

The Venezuelan opposition leader’s win surprised many, but none more than Trump himself, who has long insisted that his administration deserves recognition for its string of peace and normalization deals. With trademark bravado, the president blended humor, self-praise, and faint exasperation as he reacted to the news.

“She said, ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.’ That’s a very nice thing to do. I didn’t say, ‘Then give it to me’ — though I think she might have. She was very nice.”

It was classic Trump — part joke, part boast, part grievance.

White House Lashes Out at Nobel Committee

Earlier in the day, the White House had issued an unusually sharp statement criticizing the Nobel Committee’s decision to honor Machado instead of the U.S. president. Officials accused the committee of letting “political bias” cloud its judgment and overlooking what they described as Trump’s extraordinary record in peacemaking.

spokesman Steven Cheung in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

The statement was both a defense of Trump’s global record and a reflection of the administration’s long-standing frustration with the Nobel establishment, which has repeatedly bypassed him despite his loud lobbying.

Trump’s Case for the Prize

Trump has often cast himself as a world peacemaker — the deal-maker who can stop wars with a handshake and a headline. Since taking office, he has claimed credit for brokering or influencing multiple ceasefire agreements, most recently in Gaza, where he helped mediate a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas.

In his remarks Friday, Trump pointed to those efforts as proof that the Nobel Peace Prize should have been his. “We resolved wars others said could never end,” he told reporters, claiming he had effectively ended “eight wars” during his presidency — though he didn’t specify which conflicts he was referring to.

He has long treated the Nobel Prize as both a prize to covet and an institution to mock. Just last month, during a meeting with senior military leaders, he laughed off the idea that he would ever be chosen.

“Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not,” he said then. “They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing.”

That mix of defiance and expectation has defined Trump’s relationship with the award — an annual contest of sorts between his public longing and his instinctive disdain for those who actually receive it.

Machado’s Historic Win

For her part, María Corina Machado, a longtime critic of Venezuela’s authoritarian regime, became the first Venezuelan to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her victory was widely praised across Latin America as a triumph of civil resistance — though in Washington, it triggered irritation rather than celebration. Trump’s team framed the outcome as proof that the committee was more interested in symbolism than substance.

Machado herself has not confirmed Trump’s claim that she called to dedicate the award to him, and her aides declined to comment.

Politics, Pride, and a Punchline

By evening, Trump appeared less angry than amused. Standing in front of the Resolute Desk, he smiled as he repeated the story of Machado’s call to a small group of journalists. The moment captured the mix of pride and performative humor that has come to define his public persona.

“Look, it’s a very nice thing,” he said. “She didn’t have to say that. I didn’t even ask. But maybe next year, who knows?”

Then, with a grin, he added, “I didn’t say, ‘Give it to me’ — but maybe I should have.”

It was an answer that said everything about Trump: the showman who can’t resist the spotlight, the president who sees even the world’s most prestigious peace prize as another stage for his one-man performance.