WASHINGTON — Soon after the Nobel Peace Prize committee announced it was awarding this year’s honor to María Corina Machado, the leader of the main opposition movement in Venezuela, the Trump White House issued an unequivocal condemnation.
“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, wrote on social media Friday. President Donald Trump had been openly campaigning for the prize.
But things are complicated in matters of peace and war.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, is a longtime supporter of Machado. In fact, he signed a letter in August to the Norwegian Nobel Committee supporting her nomination for the prize.
Rubio was a senator representing Florida at the time. The letter was signed by seven other Republican lawmakers, including Rick Scott, the other senator from Florida, and Michael Waltz, then a member of Congress representing Florida who later became Trump’s first national security adviser in this term and is now the president’s ambassador to the United Nations.
“It is our firm belief that María Corina Machado’s courageous and selfless leadership, and unyielding dedication to the pursuit of peace and democratic ideals, make her a most deserving candidate for this prestigious award,” Rubio and the other lawmakers wrote.
“We hope that the Nobel Committee will recognize María Corina Machado’s remarkable contributions and grant her the distinction she so rightly deserves,” they said.
Rubio and Machado posted praise of each other on social platform X months ago. But as of noon Friday, hours after the Nobel committee’s announcement, Rubio had not written a single word about Machado’s win on either his personal or official accounts on X. Neither had Waltz. Scott did praise Machado and said in a separate post that Trump should be next year’s winner.
In the early afternoon, Rubio, using his personal account, promoted a post by Machado in which she dedicated the prize to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump.” An official White House account promoted the same post.
The State Department did not reply to a request for comment.
Rubio is leading a push within the Trump administration to try to oust Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, through military pressure, which has included four lethal strikes so far on civilian boats in the Caribbean and a rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the region. Rubio says Maduro is an illegitimate leader and a fugitive from a 2020 Justice Department indictment on drug trafficking charges. The Trump administration has said the four boats were carrying drugs but has not presented evidence.
International election experts say Maduro subverted legitimate results of a presidential election last year. The Biden administration recognized a candidate supported by Machado, Edmundo González, as the winner of the election.
Rubio has been a vocal advocate for Machado for years. As secretary of state, he wrote a tribute to her for Time magazine in April in which he called her by her nickname, the “Venezuelan Iron Lady.” He met with five members of the opposition movement in May after they fled Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, in what Rubio called a “precise operation.”
Pedro Urruchurtu, an adviser to Machado, told The New York Times last month that the opposition had developed a plan for the first 100 hours after Maduro’s ouster that would involve a transfer of power to González.
“What we’re talking about is an operation to dismantle a criminal structure, and that includes a series of actions and tools,” Urruchurtu said, adding: “It has to be done with the use of force, because otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to defeat a regime like the one we’re facing.”
The opposition’s plans include persuading other governments to take diplomatic, financial, intelligence and law enforcement actions, he said.
A second senior member of the largely exiled Venezuelan opposition, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said they were talking to multiple U.S. agencies.
The State Department said the administration was focused on fighting drug cartels. Rubio has repeatedly said Maduro sits atop a network of Venezuelan cartels and is a “narco-terrorist.”
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained that the ouster of Maduro, a leftist autocrat, would deal a big blow to the Communist government of Cuba, an ally of Venezuela.
On Friday morning, Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has become an influential outside adviser to Trump, jumped into the conversation. She wrote on social media that Machado’s actions were “actively stoking and promoting violent regime change in Venezuela.”
“How is her push for regime change peaceful?” Loomer added. “Trump is actually working to end wars.”
On Jan. 9, before he took office, Trump posted two photos of Machado rallying crowds. He wrote: “Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado and President-elect Gonzalez are peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the regime.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2025 The New York Times
