Who is María Corina Machado? Meet the politician President Trump lost Nobel Peace Prize to

When Jørgen was asked about his thoughts on Donald Trump's campaign, he explained that "in the long history of the Nobel Peace" the committee has "seen any type of campaign, media attention." "We receive thousands and thousands letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace," he shared. "This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity, so we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel."

Since stepping into office for his second term in January, the president has been vocal about how he believed he deserved the prize for negotiating solutions to "seven unendable wars". Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who has crossed party lines on some recent votes, was asked if the president merited the Nobel Peace Prize after the initial phase of the Israel-Hamas agreement was announced. "If this sticks. I think the whole point of having a Nobel Peace Prize is for ending wars and promoting peace," he said. "And if he brings the Ukrainian war to its end, I will be the Democrat leading the committee for his Nobel Prize Peace."

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Thursday that it had selected the 2025 Peace Prize laureate on Monday, prior to the announcement of the most recent ceasefire plan. Kirsti Bergstø, head of Norway’s Socialist Left Party and its foreign policy spokesperson, stated that the country was anticipating a strong reaction from Trump if he were not awarded the prize. "Donald Trump is taking the US in an extreme direction, attacking freedom of speech, having masked secret police kidnapping people in broad daylight and cracking down on institutions and the courts. When the president is this volatile and authoritarian, of course we have to be prepared for anything," he told The Guardian.

He continued: "The Nobel Committee is an independent body and the Norwegian government has no involvement in determining the prizes. But I’m not sure Trump knows that. We have to be prepared for anything from him."

María was born in Venezuela in 1967. Her prize motivation states: "For her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy." The prize winner studied engineering and finance before briefly working in the business sector. In 1992, she founded the Atenea Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting street children in Caracas.

In 2002, María co-founded Súmate, an organization dedicated to promoting free and fair elections through training programs and election monitoring. She was elected to the National Assembly in 2010 with a record-breaking number of votes, but departed in 2014. She now leads the opposition party Vente Venezuela and, in 2017, helped establish the Soy Venezuela alliance, which brings together pro-democracy forces across political divides.

In 2023, she declared her intention to run for president in the 2024 election. After being prevented from participating, she threw her support behind the opposition’s alternative candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. The opposition mounted a widespread campaign, gathering extensive evidence to assert that they were the rightful winners. Despite this, the regime proclaimed its own victory and intensified its hold on power.

María was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2025 for her dedication to advancing democracy in Venezuela.