(Zero Hedge)—President Trump plans to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado next week during her planned visit to the United States.
This development comes despite his earlier reluctance to back her for the country’s top leadership role. Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in a taped interview that aired Thursday night that he understands Machado is “coming in next week sometime” and looks forward to saying hello to her.
During the interview, Hannity inquired about Machado. He mentioned that she had appeared on his show earlier in the week and reminded viewers that she had won the Nobel Peace Prize, which she publicly dedicated to Trump.
The president has openly pursued the Nobel Peace Prize in the past and has campaigned for it in connection with his foreign policy victories. He told Hannity that it was “a major embarrassment to Norway” that he has not yet received one. Hannity added that Machado had said on both television and radio that she wanted to give Trump her Nobel Peace Prize “for liberating her country.”
Trump responded warmly, calling Machado “a very nice person,” and confirmed that he was aware of the offer. He said he understood that she would be visiting soon and that he was open to meeting her. “I understand she’s coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her,” Trump said. “I’ve heard that she wants to do that. That’d be a great honor.”
🚨OMG: Trump says he wants the Nobel Prize belonging to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and expects her to give it to him when she comes to DC next week.
He can’t be insane enough to take out Maduro just because he wanted her award, can he? pic.twitter.com/6Z9Cpozmy5
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) January 9, 2026
NBC News reported Thursday night that a representative for Machado did not immediately confirm the meeting, and the White House offered no details.
The potential meeting follows last week’s successful operation to capture Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, after which Delcy Rodríguez assumed the interim presidency.
Several Republicans in Congress have pushed for Machado to take charge of the country following Maduro’s ouster. However, Trump is not backing her yet.
“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said last weekend, after Maduro was in U.S. custody. “She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”
Trump instead settled on Rodríguez.
“For Ms. Machado, Mr. Trump’s comments landed like a gut punch, and it represented a public break for the United States with a leader who had spent more than a year trying to ingratiate herself to Mr. Trump — so much so that when Ms. Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he covets, she dedicated it to him,” the New York Times reported earlier this week.
“The president had been persuaded by arguments from senior officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said that if the United States tried to back the opposition, it could further destabilize the country and require a more robust military presence inside the country. A classified C.I.A. intelligence analysis reflected that view, as well, according to a person familiar with the document.”
Rubio described the plans for Venezuela as a “threefold process.”
“We don’t want it descending into chaos,” Rubio explained in remarks to the press this week.
“Part of that stabilization, and the reason why we understand and believe that we have the strongest leverage possible, is our quarantine. As you’ve seen today, two more ships were seized. We are in the midst right now, and in fact about to execute, on a deal to take all the oil – they have oil that is stuck in Venezuela; they can’t move it because of our quarantine and because it’s sanctioned. We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. We’re going to sell it in the marketplace – at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting. That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it is disbursed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime. So, we have a lot of leverage to move on the stabilization front.”
The potential meeting next week between Trump and Machado could signal a shift in Trump’s approach or serve as a diplomatic courtesy to a key opposition figure.
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