"President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Palm Beach, FL, Jan. 31, 2026."

I'm going to pick through the transcript and will update in about an hour. Meantime, you can pick over the text and pull out your favorite highlights

ADDED: From the YouTube transcript:

"I presented the President of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom."

That's María Corina Machado, who had the power to make a gift of the object, the medal, but cannot cause Trump to become the prize-winner.

Presumably, she did not give him any of the money — about $1 million — that came with the award. That money means much more to her than to our billionaire President, but more important, visitors to the President can't be handing over piles of money. And she wants something from him. She wants a lot.

He wanted something too, the Nobel Prize, and now he's in the ambiguous position of sort of having it. You just have the medal. It's like Putin's Super Bowl ring.

What do you have when you have the token of winning and you did not win? It's not the token of winning with respect to you, so what is it? 

"María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, repeatedly praised President Trump on Monday during a prime-time appearance on Fox News...."

"Ms. Machado... even offered him the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in October, a prize Mr. Trump has coveted for years..... 'She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,' Mr. Trump said of Ms. Machado on Saturday. 'She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.' Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had persuaded Mr. Trump that Venezuela could be further destabilized if the United States tried to back the opposition. A classified C.I.A. intelligence analysis reflected that view, according to a person familiar with the document.... Mr. Trump has not indicated if new elections will be held in Venezuela, saying only that the United States was 'in charge' of the country. Ms. Machado said on Monday that the opposition would win 'over 90 percent of the vote in free and fair elections.'..."

The New York Times reports, in "Venezuela’s Machado Praises Trump in Fox News Interview/María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, offered to share her Nobel Peace Prize with President Trump. He has refused to back her."

Here's the interview:

ADDED: There's some good background in this other NYT article, published before that Fox News interview, "Why Trump Refused to Back Venezuela’s Machado: Fears of Chaos, and Fraying Ties/U.S. intelligence suggested María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader, would struggle to lead the government. But her relationship with Trump officials had been souring for months" (NYT)(gift link). Excerpt:

"María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this week... dodged a reporter’s question about her views on the threat of U.S. military action in Venezuela."

"But she repeated the Trump administration’s talking points on Mr. Maduro’s government, comparing him to a criminal mastermind engaged in a vast array of illegal activities in partnership with America’s adversaries. 'Venezuela has already been invaded,' she said. 'We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels.'... In response to questions about the seizure of the oil tanker, Ms. Machado said that she supported cutting the funds of Mr. Maduro’s government. She added that he finances himself with gold smuggling, human trafficking, drugs and illegal oil sales...."

From "Nobel Peace Prize Winner Machado Vows to End Maduro’s Rule in Venezuela/María Corina Machado reappeared on the global stage as the Trump administration ramped up its pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro" (NYT).

ADDED: I'm reading "How Nobel peace prize winner María Machado fled Venezuela, in a wig/The Venezuelan opposition leader took great risks to reach Norway, where her daughter had accepted the prize, making a surprise appearance hours later" (London Times): "... Machado left her safe house in the Caracas suburbs on Monday night, wearing a wig and a disguise.... [and] embarked on a ten-hour journey through ten military checkpoints before reaching the coast by midnight. After resting for a few hours at a coastal fishing village, she and two others set out at 5am on a traditional wooden skiff — a small lightweight fishing boat with a shallow bottom, designed to be used near shore — and made the 35-mile trip across the Caribbean Sea to Curaçao, an island nation within the kingdom of the Netherlands. Strong winds and choppy seas delayed her crossing.... [A] source said that the Machado escape team alerted the US government 'so that they would not blow up the boat.' The opposition leader has been a vocal supporter of the Trump administration’s increased military presence in the area...."

AND: The NYT quotes Machado: "I believe that President Trump’s actions have been decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever. You need to raise the cost of staying in power and lower the cost of leaving power. Only when you do that, this regime will break down. And that’s where we’re moving toward right now."

"I dedicate this [Nobel Peace P]rize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!"

This recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom.

We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic…

— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) October 10, 2025