President Donald Trump told Fox News he would accept Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado's offer to share her Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado told Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier this week she would share the award that Trump publicly covets, and the president told the same broadcaster on Thursday night that he would accept if she makes the offer when they meet next week, reported the Washington Post.
"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 told Hannity. "That would be a great honor. I did put out eight wars – eight and a quarter, because, you know, Thailand and Cambodia started going at it again. I give a quarter."
Machado won the opposition primary in Venezuela two years ago but barred from running in the general election by Nicolás Maduro, who then claimed victory over a candidate Machado had backed in an election determined by independent ballot audits as invalid.
She had been living in hiding in Venezuela before the U.S. invasion last week that deposed Maduro, who was taken to a New York City jail to face criminal charges, and she appeared on Fox News days after the military action to discuss her plans after the strongman's removal.
"I do want to say today, on behalf of the Venezuelan people, how grateful we are for [Trump’s] courageous mission,” Machado said on Hannity’s show this week, and the host asked whether her rumored offer to share the prize with Trump were true.
"It hasn't happened yet, but I certainly would love to personally tell him that we believe, the Venezuelan people believe – this is a prize of the Venezuelan people – so we want to give it to him, share it with him," Machado said. "What he has done, as I said, is historic, it's a huge step towards a democratic transition."
Trump announced after the military operation Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela with cooperation by Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Maduro’s vice president, but the Post previously reported, according to two sources close to the White House, that Trump was not willing to support Machado as the new leader because she had accepted the Nobel prize he covets.
“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,” one of those sources told the newspaper.