Trump is raging against the Nobel Peace Prize winner. His own secretary of state endorsed her
As MAGA raged over the fact that President Donald Trump was passed up for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other MAGA lawmakers showed they endorsed this year's winner for the Nobel in a letter written in 2024.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado "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."
Reposting White House director of communications Steven Cheung's X complaint that "The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace," CNN's senior political reporter Aaron Blake pointed out on X that the winner has a tie to Rubio.
"The person who won the Nobel prize happens to align with a major and very current Trump administration initiative — dislodging [Venezuelan leader Nicolás] Maduro. But the White House is criticizing the choice as 'politics over peace,' because Trump didn't win," Blake wrote.
Blake posted a link to the letter sent to the Nobel committee and signed by a slew of Florida Republicans including then Senator Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), then Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), who is now the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), and Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL).
In it, they wrote that Machado, "has risked everything to rally the previously flagging spirits of the Venezuelan people. They have suffered 25 years of oppression, torture, murder, and economic deprivation at the hands of the Chavez-Maduro regime who has systematically undermined democratic institutions and perpetuated a regional crisis of monumental proportions. Machado stands as a beacon of hope and resilience."
The Florida Republicans concluded their letter, saying "We hope that the Nobel Committee will recognize María Corina Machado’s remarkable contributions and grant her the distinction she so rightly deserves."
But that letter wasn't all Rubio did to endorse Machado. In April, he wrote a glowing endorsement of her in Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2025 issue, calling her "The Venezeuelan Iron Lady," and saying, "she has never backed down from her mission of fighting for a free, fair, and democratic Venezuela."
