(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is set to hold a lunch meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado at 12:30 p.m. ET Thursday, the White House said. The meeting, which is currently scheduled to be closed to press, will take place in the White House private dining room.
“She’s a very nice woman,” Trump said of Machado on Wednesday, according to Reuters. “I’ve seen her on television. I think we’re just going to talk basics.”
Trump also said Wednesday he had a “great conversation” with Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, their first since authoritarian Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was seized by the U.S. on Jan. 3.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump said during a bill signing in the Oval Office. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”
The president said last week on his social media platform that he had “cancelled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks” on Venezuela after the government released several political prisoners, but he added that “all ships will stay in place for safety and security purposes.”
Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for her work “promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” and her push to move the country from dictatorship to democracy.
“Machado is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize first and foremost for her efforts to advance democracy in Venezuela,” the Nobel Committee said at the time. “But democracy is also in retreat internationally. Democracy — understood as the right to freely express one’s opinion, to cast one’s vote and to be represented in elective government — is the foundation of peace both within countries and between countries.”
Machado said last week that she would like to give or share the prize with Trump, who oversaw the successful U.S. operation to capture Maduro. Maduro is now facing drug trafficking charges in New York, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
“I certainly would love to be able to personally tell him that we believe — the Venezuelan people, because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people — certainly want to, to give it to him and share it with him,” Machado told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday. “What he has done is historic. It’s a huge step towards a democratic transition.”
When asked earlier in January whether Machado could become the next leader of Venezuela, Trump said it would be “very tough for her” because she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.”
The Norwegian Nobel Institute issued a statement last week saying that once the Nobel Peace Prize is announced, it “can neither be revoked, shared, nor transferred to others. Once the announcement has been made, the decision stands for all time.”
Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, along with the people of Venezuela, shortly after it was announced in October 2025.
“I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause,” she said then.
Trump has coveted and openly campaigned for winning the Nobel Prize himself since his return to office. White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung slammed the Nobel Committee for its decision after Machado was announced as the most recent winner.
“[Trump] has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” Cheung said in an X post. “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
Jorgen Watne Frydens, the Nobel Committee chair, was asked about Trump’s “campaign” for the prize last year but denied it had any impact on the decision-making process.
“We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what, for them, leads to peace,” Frydens said. “This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. We base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”
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