Venezuela’s Machado Presents Trump With a Nobel Prize After All

Donald Trump on Thursday finally got his greatest wish: to obtain a Nobel Peace Prize.

He didn’t earn it, of course. Last year’s actual recipient, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, told reporters that she “presented” her medal to Trump during a meeting the two had at the White House.

“I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, and I told him this,” she said. “Two hundred years ago, General Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington’s face on it. Bolivar since then kept that medal for the rest of his life.… It was given by General Lafayette as a sign of the brotherhood between the United States, people of the United States and the people of Venezuela in their fight for freedom against tyranny.

“And 200 years in history, the people of Bolivar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal, in this case the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”

Machado had already dedicated her prize to Trump when she won it last year. And just because she gave it to him does not transfer the title of Nobel laureate to him, as the Nobel Committee clarified over the weekend.

It’s highly likely that Machado’s decision to give her medal to Trump is an attempt to win favor with the new self-declared leader of Venezuela. After directing troops to storm Caracas, nearly two weeks ago, and kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump announced that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez would take over as interim president.

He notably passed over Machado, saying that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader” because she lacked sufficient “respect” in Venezuela. And it appears that Machado’s gamble may not pay off, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ahead of Thursday’s meeting that he had yet to change his mind.

More than 80 House Democrats have co-signed articles of impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The bill, introduced by Illinois Representative Robin Kelly, comes amid ratcheting tensions in Minnesota, where ICE agents’ aggressive tactics have led to multiple shootings involving federal officers and widespread protests in Minneapolis.

“Noem’s gestapo-style tactics and reckless leadership have left communities and families devastated,” Kelly wrote in a post on X Thursday.

Dozens of Democrats lent their name in support of the measure, including all four Democratic representatives from Minnesota: Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig, Betty McCollum, and Kelly Morrison.

Omar, a regular target of President Donald Trump, said casting her support behind the measure was a means of seeking justice for Renee Good, the mother of three who was shot and killed by an ICE agent last week.

“Renee Nicole Good should be alive. We’ll continue to fight until we achieve real justice and accountability,” she wrote in a post on X. “That begins with impeaching Kristi Noem and ensuring no federal agent can act as judge, jury, and executioner in our streets.”

Rather than turn down the temperature following Good’s killing, Noem oversaw the deployment of even more immigration officers to Minnesota after the deadly shooting.

Other high-profile Democrats who co-sponsored the impeachment bill included Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Maxwell Frost, Eric Swalwell, and Jasmine Crockett.

“Kristi Noem has been a complete and total failure at her job. She has violated her oath and has allowed ICE agents to terrorize our communities,” Crockett wrote in a post on X.

A new federal lawsuit alleges that former Senator Kyrsten Sinema had an affair with her married bodyguard, Mark Ammel, marked by drug use, countless concerts, international travel, snide comments about colleagues, and more.

Mark Ammel’s ex-wife, Heather Ammel, is seeking $25,000 in damages on the grounds that Sinema and her ex-husband’s affair incited divorce, ending their 14-year marriage. This is possible under North Carolina’s “alienation of affection” law, which allows ex-spouses to sue the third party they allege interfered in their marriage. Only five other states in the nation still have this law on their books.

Heather Ammel’s complaint alleges that Mark and Sinema traveled alone together to Napa Valley in 2023, outside of Ammel’s security detail duties. He then began to join Sinema at other events, like a U2 concert in Las Vegas, a Green Day concert in Washington (where he brought his young child with him), a Taylor Swift concert in Miami, and more.

In 2024, Heather discovered Signal message exchanges between her husband and Sinema that included a photo of Sinema wrapped in a towel, as well as multiple messages that revealed the lack of seriousness in which Sinema held her job.

In those messages, Sinema offered to help Ammel through his mental health and PTSD challenges from his time in the military, and even told him to bring MDMA, or molly, on an actual work trip so that she—the sitting senator—could “guide him through a psychedelic experience.”

In another message in 2024, Sinema told Ammel that she was skipping the State of the Union address that year because she didn’t want to hear “some old man, President Biden, talk about the legislation she wrote.” When Ammel messaged Sinema about missionary sex with the lights on, the then-senator replied, “Boring!”

Earlier that year, Ammel admitted that Sinema was “handsy” with him at an event, holding his hand and touching him. They then traveled to San Francisco in a work capacity—until Sinema invited Ammel into her hotel room, where he stayed “for hours.”

In April, Ammel spent time alone with Sinema in her Washington, D.C., apartment, and in May she paid for his “psychedelic treatment” in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ammel told Sinema he planned on divorcing from Heather that summer. That fall, Heather saw a message from Sinema to Mark that read, “I miss you. Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon.”

“Are you having an affair with my husband?” Heather responded. She and Mark separated that November, and Heather alleges that Sinema and Mark’s affair is still ongoing.

Before this, Sinema was most known for her “independent” heel turn, voting against workers’ rights and health care advances after campaigning as a next-generation progressive. Now she’ll be making headlines for the comments and actions revealed in this lawsuit.

According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, anyone questioning her about ICE’s wanton killing of Renee Nicole Good—or any of their violent acts—is a biased radical leftist.

“Secretary Noem spoke to the media and she said, among other things, that [ICE agents] are ‘doing everything correctly,’” The Hill’s Niall Stanage said to Leavitt at her Thursday press conference. “Thirty-two people died in ICE custody last year, 170 U.S citizens were detained by ICE, and Renee Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent. How does that equate to them doing everything correctly?”

“Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?” Leavitt asked.

“You’re asking me my opinion? Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably,” Stanage said.

“Oh, OK, so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion,” Leavitt replied, launching into her classic tangent to try to delegitimize the reporter rather than actually address the question—and the senseless killing the entire country saw on camera.

“What do you want me to do?” Stanage tried to ask.

“You’re a left-wing hack, you’re not a reporter, you’re posing in this room as a journalist, and it’s so clear by the premise of your question,” Leavitt said, wagging her finger. “You and the people in the media, who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist—you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.... You’re a left-wing activist.”

“What was inaccurate with what I said?” Stanage asked while Leavitt went on.

“Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who ICE is trying to remove from this country? I bet you don’t.… I bet you never even read about Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray, or all of the innocent Americans who are killed at the hands of illegal aliens,” she said, referencing the same two murders the GOP has been talking about for over a year. “Shame on people like you in the media, who have a crooked view.”

Leavitt calling this man a hack—when the Trump administration has gone out of its way to fill its Cabinet and press corps with them—is beyond irony. More importantly, it appears that Leavitt and the general GOP plan to stick to their narrative of Good as some crazed antifa activist who was trying to mow down ICE agents with her car. That could not be further from the truth, and we know that. It is critical for leaders at every level to combat that rhetoric.

“[Press secretary Leavitt] can posture all she wants,” The New Republic’s Greg Sargent commented on X. “But asking how the following—tons of US citizens detained; many deaths in ICE custody; killing of Renee Good—square w/the claim that ICE is doing everything correctly is a perfectly legitimate question that she is plainly unable to answer.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped Thursday at a reporter who didn’t buy her attempt to dismiss President Donald Trump’s repeated mentions of canceling elections.

During a White House press briefing, a reporter asked Leavitt why the president kept mentioning canceling elections. Trump had pointed out while speaking to Reuters that presidents never do well in the midterm elections, and bragged that because his administration has already accomplished so much, maybe the democratic process wasn’t necessary at all.

“When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election,” Trump said. The president had made a similar remark while speaking to Republicans at the Kennedy Center last week.

“The president was simply joking,” Leavitt said. “He was saying, ‘We’re doing such a great job, we’re doing everything American people thought, maybe we should just keep rolling.’ But he was speaking facetiously.”

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg posed a follow-up. “Are you saying the president finds the idea of cancelling elections funny?”

“Andrew, were you in the room? No you weren’t. I was in the room, I heard the conversation. And only someone like you would take that so seriously, and pose that in a question in that way,” Leavitt replied.

But Trump’s repeated threats to cancel essential democratic processes get more real all the time, as Democrats continue to gain momentum ahead of the midterm elections. Earlier Thursday, he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which some have speculated he could use to seize control of the states—and even suspend elections.