Donald Trump’s former national security adviser says he’s “always worried” the president might swipe a Nobel Peace Prize on display in the White House.
John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, revealed this concern on Monday’s OutFront with Erin Burnett. The CNN host played a clip for Bolton that showed the president musing about taking the prize from Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize despite Trump and his allies desperately lobbying for him to win it.
“Look, it’s always all about Trump. He cares less about Venezuela than he does the prize,” Bolton said of Machado, who won the prize for her opposition to Nicolas Maduro. In a bid to appease POTUS, Machado indicated that she would hand over the prize. The president signaled he was eager to accept it, but the Nobel Institute said it can’t be transferred.
“And by the way, she can give him the medallion and still keep the prize, if that’s what he wants,” Bolton told Burnett.
He said he feared Trump might even claim the prize won by the 26th U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt, in his quest for recognition.
“Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel medallion hangs on the wall of the Roosevelt room in the White House. I’ve always worried Trump would grab that if he can’t get another one. She could probably find a replacement somewhere,” he said.
Roosevelt won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the end of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American president to receive a Nobel Prize.
Trump, meanwhile, has mused about taking the award from Machado. “I’ve heard that she wants to do that. That would be a great honor,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week.
He went into his now-familiar riff about his peace credentials, boasting, “I’ve stopped eight wars” and calling it “a very big embarrassment” that he hadn’t been given the prize. He argued that “when you put out eight wars, in theory, you should get one for each war.”
Within hours, however, Trump’s hopes were dashed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, which said its rules do not permit the passing on of the prize to someone else.
The White House has been contacted for comment.
