MAGA mouthpiece Steven Cheung has furiously attacked the Nobel Foundation for pointing out their awards cannot be regifted-even to presidents.
Trump, 79, has said for months he believes he deserves the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize award. He lost out in October to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Last week, Machado presented him with her medal “as a personal symbol of gratitude” on behalf of Venezuelans and in recognition of Trump’s “principled and decisive action to secure a free Venezuela.”
The president gleefully accepted the second-hand award, which Machado had mounted in a gold frame to add to Trump’s shiny Oval Office haul.
On Sunday, the Nobel Foundation pointed out it was duty-bound to “safeguard the dignity” of the Nobel Prizes. It issued a statement that said the prizes are awarded to those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
The Foundation added that a prize cannot “be passed on or further distributed” even symbolically.
Cheung, the White House Director of Communications, lost it at the Nobel Foundation in a post on X Sunday, raging that it had now issued “multiple statements/comments” on Trump receiving Machado’s award.
“Instead of trying to play politics, they should highlight the President’s unprecedented accomplishments,” Cheung wrote, stating Trump “rightfully deserves” the award for “bringing peace to at least eight wars.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
MAGA podcast host Katie Miller, who is married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen, also shared the Nobel Foundation X post, curiously adding “They just mad about Greenland.” The Nobel Foundation is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Trump slapped a 10% tariff on goods from Sweden last week for its opposition to his proposed Greenland takeover. Sweden, along with France, Germany, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the U.K., has sent small numbers of troops to the autonomous territory.
Trump has stated that the U.S. will take Greenland “one way or another,” despite pushback from European leaders.
Machado told Fox & Friends Weekend on Saturday she still wanted to give Trump the award, despite being told by the Nobel Foundation it was against their rules.
“He deserves it,” Machado said. “It was very emotional moment. I decided to present the Nobel Peace Prize metal on behalf of the people of Venezuela.”
Fox co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy also raised Trump’s comments that Machado was “a very nice woman” but that “she doesn’t have the respect” to be leader after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. troops, and wondered if she believed the president’s opinion of her had changed after she gave him her Nobel Peace Prize.
“Yes, I think so,” she said. “I hope we will turn into friends. I hope to have a chance to have another conversation with him but I’m very impressed with the meeting, it was absolutely sincere on both sides.”
Sources told The Washington Post earlier this month that Trump had not endorsed Machado to replace Maduro after he was ousted by U.S. forces because she had committed the “ultimate sin” of not turning down the Nobel Peace Prize last October, and recommending it go to the president instead.
Conservative Machado won the prestigious award for her struggle to rescue Venezuela from its fate as “a brutal, authoritarian state”.
She was unable to accept the award in a December ceremony. Machado went into hiding shortly after being blocked from running in the July 2024 election. She was replaced by retired diplomat Edmundo González. Reports suggested González likely received more than twice the votes of Maduro. His government threatened to arrest her, calling her a terrorist for protesting the election results.
Machado left the White House with a red gift bag, featuring Trump’s signature.
She now joins a handful of Nobel Peace Prize recipients who parted with their medals, including Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, who gifted his medal to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels “as a gesture of thanks” for a meeting they had during World War II.
