It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has been gunning for that Nobel Peace Prize, but this year, he fell short. On Friday morning, the Prize committee announced that the honor would be going to a Venezuelan politician named María Corina Machado. And unsurprisingly, the White House wasted zero time responding — and saying that ultimately, politics are to blame.
Trump has been open about his desire for the Prize.
Even as recently as Thursday, he was still trying to make a case for himself to win the award, saying during a meeting in the Oval Office, “I know this: that nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months. And I’ve stopped eight wars. So that’s never happened before.”
But as Time reported, he has seemed resigned to the fact that the award would never be his — but not because he doesn’t believe he deserved it. In June, he said, “They won’t give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals.”
The 2025 winner was announced early Friday morning.
This year, the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the organization said in a statement.
“As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, María Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times,” they added.
The chair of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee spoke out about Trump hoping he’d be the winner.
When the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, was asked about Trump’s bid for the Prize, he offered a pretty even-keeled answer.
“We receive thousands and thousands letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace,” he said, via People. “This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity, so we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”
The White House quickly responded.
After the winner was announced, White House Director of Communications responded to the news with a statement on X.
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives,” he wrote. “He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will. The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
