Economist Paul Krugman mocks Trump for blackmailing Nobel laureate into handing over medal
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Economist Paul Krugman during FIDES 2023 at the Windsor Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on September 25, 2023 (A.PAES/Shutterstock.com)
Months after winning the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado offered her award to U.S. President Donald Trump — who accepted it when she visited the White House on Thursday, January 15. However, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is saying that Machado's act violates Nobel rules, as "a Nobel Prize can neither be revoked, shared, nor transferred to others."
Machado has been a vehement critic of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured by U.S. forces in Caracas in early January and transported to a federal detention center in New York City. However, Maduro's allies remain in power.
After Maduro was ousted, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez — a leftist ally of Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez — was sworn in as vice president. And Trump said that Machado didn't have enough support to lead Venezuela. Machado, however, is hoping that Trump will eventually give her an endorsement.
Economist and former New York Times columnist Paul Krugman — himself the 2008 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences — is among the critics of Machado's decision to give her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump.
In a brief but scathing January 16 post on his Substack page, Krugman wrote, "It’s a Nobel medal, a symbol of the honor, not the honor itself. Only a vain, insecure fool would imagine that blackmailing someone into handing their medal over adds to his stature."