White House says Nobel Committee places 'politics over peace'

The White House responded to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Venezuelan opposition activist María Corina Machado by saying the prize committee was playing politics by not giving it to President Donald Trump.

“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung wrote on social media.

Machado, meanwhile, stopped to thank the American president on the day she won the honor. She dedicated her prize to the Venezuelan people and Trump “for his decisive support of our cause!”

“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” Machado wrote on social media.

Machado, a 58-year-old industrial engineer who lives in hiding, was blocked in 2024 by Venezuela’s courts from running for president and thus challenging President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power since 2013.

Trump has publicly stated at least a half-dozen times that he deserves to win the prize. He and his allies have cited various peace efforts, including a new ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that went into effect on Oct. 10.

“They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” Trump said during a Feb. 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. “It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”

Former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama previously won the prestigious award.

The Nobel Committee does not disclose the names of nominees who were not chosen, but it said before the announcement that there were 338 candidates, 244 of whom were individuals and 94 others that were organizations.