Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado leaves following her meeting with U.S. senators, after her encounter with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 15, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
The arrival of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado at the White House on Thursday was a "stunning moment" in history, according to one CNN anchor.
Machado traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Donald Trump amid the U.S.'s ongoing intervention in Venezuela. Earlier this month, the U.S. captured dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flew them to New York to stand trial for narco-terrorism and weapons charges. The U.S. also left Maduro's second-in-command, Delcy Rodríguez, in control of the country instead of supporting Machado's opposition party, even though the latter won Venezuela's most recent election.
During the meeting, Machado presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize, which she won in 2025 for advocating for democracy in Venezuela. Burnett mentioned that the Nobel Prize has been an "obsession" of Trump's for decades, and played a clip from an old interview in which he described it as a "trophy" of achievement.
Trump later said he intends to keep the prize, even though the Nobel Foundation has said that it does not mean Trump is now counted among the Nobel winners.
CNN's Erin Burnett seemed taken aback by the meeting on her show, "Erin Burnett OutFront."
"It is astunning moment to just take apause and think about," Burnett said. "Witheverything going on in the worldat a moment like this, not only that it happened, but it might reallymatter."
Trump has said he supports leaving Rodríguez's regime in place because it is compliant with Trump's demands. One of those demands is that Venezuela fork over 50 million barrels of oil, which the Trump administration is now selling and parking the revenues from the oil in a back account in Qatar, according to reports.