Nobel Peace Prize Cannot Be Shared, Transferred to Donald Trump, Committee Says

After Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado shared her desire to give her Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump, the Nobel Committee spoke out, stating that the honor cannot be transferred to anyone but the recipient.

During a sit-down interview with Trump, Fox News’ Sean Hannity told the president that Machado, 58, said she “wants to give” him her Nobel Peace Prize.

When asked whether he would accept the honor — which he repeatedly campaigned for before Machado was awarded it in October — Trump, 79, did not give a clear answer. Still, the Nobel Committee assured that it does not matter either way.

Once awarded, a Nobel Prize “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others,” a news release posted on the Nobel Peace Prize’s website on Friday, Jan. 9, stated.

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute receive a number of requests for comments regarding the permanence of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s status,” the release continued.

It added, “The facts are clear and well established. Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.”

During Trump’s interview with Hannity, 64, the Fox News broadcaster asked the president if he planned to meet with Machado, and if he would accept her Nobel Prize, should she try to give it to him.

“Well, I understand she’s coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her. And I’ve heard that she wants to do that,” Trump said. “That would be a great honor.”

Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” and “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

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In a Jan. 4 report by The Washington Post, sources said that Machado’s decision to accept the award seemingly sullied her chance of becoming Venezuela’s new leader after the capture of the country’s President Nicolás Maduro.

When he was asked about Machado following Maduro’s capture in the early hours of Jan. 3, Trump said “it’d be very tough for her to be” Venezuela’s leader. He added that she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.”

Despite Machado dedicating the award to Trump — who has repeatedly claimed that he deserves the prize for negotiating solutions to multiple “unendable wars” — her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” a White House source told the Post.

“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” the source said.