Donald Trump is so openly desperate for a Nobel Peace Prize that members of his administration attacked the Nobel Committee for putting “politics over peace” when they gave last year’s prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado rather than the U.S. president.

And now, Venezuela’s future might hinge on Machado’s willingness to hand her award over to Trump.

Machado immediately dedicated her prize to Trump (and the “suffering people of Venezuela”) in October. But apparently that wasn’t good enough for the U.S. president. Hours after the U.S. struck Caracas and ousted Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump said that while Machado’s stand-in candidate won more than two-thirds of the vote in Venezuela’s last election, “It’d be very tough for her to be the leader,” because she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.” So now Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice-president, is acting president.

Over the weekend, two sources close to the White House

© Daily Intelligencer