Venezuelan opposition leader Machado to visit White House on Thursday

Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado attends a press conference with the President of Norway's Parliament Storting on December 11, 2025 at the Storting in Oslo. (Ole Berg-Rusten/AFP/NTB/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, a senior White House official told CNN.

Her visit to the White House comes as the president declined to endorse her following the U.S. military strikes in Caracas and capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, whose vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has been sworn in as acting president.

Shortly after the Jan. 3 operation, Trump said it would be tough for Machado to lead Venezuela, saying she doesn’t have the support or the respect of the people.

Machado, however, has something Trump has long coveted — a Nobel Prize. She’s suggested she would offer her award to the U.S. president and he’s said it’d be an “honor” to receive it, although the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said the prize cannot be transferred.

Asked on Friday whether receiving Machado’s prize would make him reconsider his view of her role in Venezuela, Trump didn’t directly answer.

“I’m going to have to speak to her. She might be involved in some aspect of it. I will have to speak to her. I think it’s very nice that she wants to come in. And that’s what I understand the reason is,” the president told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during a meeting with oil executives at the White House.

“I can’t think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me. And I don’t want to be bragging, but nobody else settled wars,” Trump said.

Trump on Sunday also expressed willingness to meet with Rodriguez “at some point.”

“We’re working along really well with the leadership, and we’ll see how it all works out,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Trump last week announced on Truth Social that he was cancelling a second wave of attacks on Venezuela in light of the country’s cooperation with the U.S. and its release of political prisoners.

Later Friday, during a meeting with oil executives, he called Venezuela an ally “right now,” while reiterating that he didn’t think a second attack was necessary.

Trump, who has said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela, has suggested that arrangement could last for years, telling The New York Times in an interview last week, “Only time will tell.”

But his pitch to oil companies on an expansive new drilling campaign — a key part of his vision for rebuilding the country and extracting its resources — has faced a skeptical response.

Trump and his top aides emerged from Friday’s lengthy White House meeting without any major commitments from companies to invest billions of dollars amid concerns about Venezuela’s long-term stability, with ExxonMobil CEO’s calling it “uninvestible.”

By Alayna Treene, CNN