The Nobel committee makes a fool of itself

www.americanthinker.com

Venezuela's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, is making the hoity-toity Europeans on the Nobel committee choke on their chateaubriand.

Not only did she say that Trump deserved it more than she did, she stunned them by presenting her Nobel prize to President Trump, and Trump actually accepted.

President Donald J. Trump meets with María Corina Machado of Venezuela in the Oval Office, during which she presented the President with her Nobel Peace Prize in recognition and honor.🕊️ pic.twitter.com/v7pYHjVNVO
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 16, 2026

She even explained the historic basis for it -- almost like a 'Lafayette, we are here' moment:

“I told him this: 200 years ago, Gen. [Marquis de] Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington’s face on it. Bolivar kept that medal the rest of his life,” Machado said.
“It was given by Gen. Lafayette as a sign of the brotherhood between the people of the US and… pic.twitter.com/tsaDvP7pzP
— Luis H Ball (@ball1_ball) January 16, 2026

It was an extraordinary historical framing, and a great gesture of honor and friendship.

But the Nobel committee didn't quite see it that way.

According to the Irish Times:

Norway reacted with disbelief to the news that Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado gave her award medal to US president Donald Trump, who has long coveted the award.
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“That’s completely unheard of,” Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor with the University of Oslo and a former politician, told public broadcaster NRK. “It’s a total lack of respect for the award, on her part,” she said, calling the act “meaningless” and “pathetic.”

The Nobel committee has been tweeting statement after statement to say the award is not transferable. Their last one was about 11 hours ago, insisting that she was wrong to do it, and emphasizing that it was not even symbolically transferable:

Statement from the Nobel Foundation
One of the core missions of the Nobel Foundation is to safeguard the dignity of the Nobel Prizes and their administration. The Foundation upholds Alfred Nobel’s will and its stipulations. It states that the prizes shall be awarded to those who… pic.twitter.com/WIadOBLtpD
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) January 18, 2026

Actually, it was none of their business, A gift is a gift, not a rental with requirements, the way the Miss Universe crown is.

Machado's initial response was along the lines of 'well, I did it,' but Machado wasn't wrong.

Venezuela has a long cultural tradition of its leaders presenting medals to those they admire. Machado explained that she was following in the Marquis of Lafayette's steps when he presented a medal with George Washington on it to South America's Liberator, Simon Bolivar, who was Venezuelan, as a gesture of esteem. But the Nobel committee was adamant -- it couldn't be transferred even symbolically.

Then someone went and checked on the matter:

From your own website https://t.co/gW6tEi4Hd7 you state and I quote “There are no restrictions in the statutes of the Nobel Foundation on what a laureate may do with the medal, the diploma, or the prize money. This means that a laureate is free to keep, give away, sell, or donate… https://t.co/45VgEbafzd
— Michael Welling (@WellingMichael) January 18, 2026

Well that was stupid.

They didn't even know their own rules, they just hated Trump and didn't want him to have it. To paraphrase Elon Musk: "Message received." The message was that they wouldn't give Trump this prize no matter what he did, so he now has this impressive gesture from Maria Corina Machado.

The Conservative Treehouse has its own hilarious take:

They can howl all they like, the prize is out of her hands, delivered to the man she thought deserved it more.

Image: Screenshot from White House tweet // public domain