Machado Leaves With Petty Gift After Giving Trump Her Nobel Prize

It looks like Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado traded her Nobel Peace Prize for a bag of Donald Trump merch.

Machado was spotted walking out of the White House Thursday with a large red paper bag with Trump’s signature scrawled across it.

This isn’t the first time Trump has touted his dictator merchandise to foreign dignitaries, who are forced to exit the White House through a humiliating gift shop filled with hats adorned with slogans like “Four More Years,” “Gulf of America,” and “Trump Was Right About Everything,” among several others.

Machado told reporters Thursday that she “presented” her medal to Trump during their meeting, though she had already dedicated her prize to the U.S. president when she won last year. The Nobel Committee clarified over the weekend that just because someone gives someone else their prize, that does not transfer the title of Nobel laureate.

It appears that ICE choked a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant to death in a Texas detention facility.

A medical examiner told Geraldo Lunas Campos’s family that, unless a toxicology report comes back with something, he will likely rule his death a homicide, according to a recording reviewed by The Washington Post. But the Department of Homeland Security claims that Lunas Campos died taking his own life.

“Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life.... During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness,” a DHS spokesperson said, using very passive language. “Medical staff was immediately called and responded. After repeated attempts to resuscitate him, EMTs declared him deceased on the scene.”

Witnesses told the Post a very different story.

Fellow detainee Santos Jesus Flores watched at least five guards struggle with Lunas Campos after he refused to enter his unit, complaining that he was without his required medications. Flores then said he watched guards choking Lunas Campos while he said, “No puedo respirar” over and over, Spanish for “I can’t breathe.” Medics tried to resuscitate him for an hour before removing his body.

“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” Flores said.

If what Flores says is true, then McLaughlin’s previous explanation—that Campos just somehow “stopped breathing and lost consciousness”—is damn near malpractice. It’s unclear whether anyone will face any kind of repercussions for killing this man, given ICE agents’ total lack of accountability. An estimated 280 people have died in ICE custody since 2004, and four have died already this year. A just society would not allow this killing to go untried. But based on these killings—from Campos to Keith Porter Jr. to Renee Good—we’re far from that ever being a reality.

“I know it’s a homicide,” said Jeanette Pagan Lopez, the mother of two of Campos’s three children. “The people that physically harmed him should be held accountable.”

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.