Bulwark Takes - Trump Just Accepted Someone Else’s Nobel Peace Prize

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Sam and Sonny give their takes on an embarrassing scene at the White House in which Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado handed Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal and Trump accepted it.

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the book. I'm joined by Sonny Bunch, and we're here to talk about the Nobel Peace Prize, which has exchanged hands this afternoon officially. The reason we're bringing Sunny to talk about it is that, unbeknownst a lot of people here, Sunny actually received a Nobel once upon a time.

It's true. What was four? What land did you bring to? Physics. Physics. Physics. It was physics. I've done a lot of work with muons and neutrinos.

Sam, people don't know that about me. They think I'm just movies, but... Yeah, that's for another podcast. So, backstory here is the actual recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuela opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado. She was in Washington, D.C. today. She was in D.C. because her country, if you haven't been aware, is undergoing a bit of turmoil.

Donald Trump removed the leader of it. What happened? Yeah. It was on a Saturday. We all woke up, but you might have missed it. It happened. and we seem to have moved on. And she's here in D.C. to sort of, you know, make the case that they should practice democracy in Venezuela and let people vote. And she's experiencing a bit of a rough

reception from the White House, which has no inclination to try to like, you know, help her out and become the leader of her country at all. So what did she do? She today presented Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize because Donald Trump covets the Nobel Peace Prize and he accepted it. So let's watch the video of her explaining what she did today. And then, Sunny, I get your reaction on the end of it. Maria, did you offer to President Trump your Nobel Peace Prize? I presented the President of the United States, the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize. And I told him this.

Listen to this. Two hundred years ago, General Lafayette gave Simón Bolivar a medal with George Washington, face beneath. Bolíber since then kept that medal for the rest of his life. Actually, when you see his portraits, you can see the medal there. And it was given by General Lafayette as a sign of the brotherhood. 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. All right, there you have it. She gave him her Nobel Peace Prize. I'm, like, stunned by this. It's funny. The word covet's a good one there, because it really is a Ghalem precious situation where

Donald Trump is like, my precious. We don't spend enough time just thinking about how completely insane this presidency is. Like, we do in some, you know, we understand on some level how insane it is. But, like, South Park had a whole bunch of episodes that were over the top insane. Like, lines of business leaders coming into the Oval Office to give Donald Trump gifts of gold and the such. And, you know, the, the ice advertisements where they were just pulling randos off the street and been like, here's some guns. Here's some camouflage. Go go get the immigrants.

And, like, we're all like, ha, this is funny. But, oh, it's a little over the top. And it's all 100% true. It's all coming true. The Nobel Peace Prize thing, I mean, first off, it's the most pathetic thing in the war. Because this is all his Obama fixation, right? His thinking was Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing in his first year in office. Why have I not also been given the Peace Prize for stopping the eight and one quarter's wars that I have stopped?

I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. So what he has done, and I feel so bad, I feel so bad for this woman who is just, trying to save her country from the insane Chavismo warlords who have taken it over. She's just like, please help us, president. Here is the Nobel Peace Prize. Will you help now? And he like he takes it like he's like it's like it's such mob boss behavior. I don't.

It drives me totally bananas. No, it's nuts. And I'm just like it's the most crass thing in the world for him to accept. it. It's one thing for it to be offered, which is grotesque that she felt compelled to offer it to him because she knows that he would like it. It's another thing for him to be like, thank you. I will accept your number. Any decent, any decent human being would be like, absolutely not. You earn this. Like, this is silly. I'm just doing this for shits and giggles. Don't worry. What's he going to do with it? Is he going to wear it? Is he going to put it around his neck?

Is he going to wear it around the White House? Is he going to have it framed and be like my Nobel Peace Prize? I, like, is there going to be, is this going to go into? the to the hall of presidents that he has set up and be like Donald Trump, who has received the Nobel Peace Prize from, from, this is so insane that even the Nobel come, the Nobel, award people are like. The Nobel Peace Center. Just. You can't.

We've awarded the Nobel Peace Prize not to Donald Trump. They didn't actually say this, but it was like, it was, they've got the Nobel, they've got the Nobel Peace Prize. I said my head. I'll read the tweet. I'll read the tweet. It's from the Nobel Peace Center, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize. And they put out a tweet today, clearly anticipating that this was going to happen. It was at 6 a.m. today. And they said, a lot of lead up about, you know, the diameter and the weight and all that stuff of it. And why Alfred Nobel is the portrait. And then they go, but one truth remains, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee states, once a Nobel Prize is announced, to, cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time. Metal can change owners, but the title of Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot. So they knew this was coming. Again, though, Trump, like the most egotomaniacal human being on the planet will accept it and probably will put like, I can, the range of possibilities here is endless,

but you could easily see him, for instance, changing his Twitter bio to say he was awarded to know about peace prize. He obviously is going to display it in some variety. Recipient. Recipient. Yeah. Recipient. Yeah. So yeah. And the other thing that's crazy about this, there's so much that's nutty about this, is that she was photographed, Machado's photograph leaving the White House today after her meeting with Trump. And what is she holding? She's holding this red bag with the Donald Trump's signature on it. He gave her some like Donald Trump ties or something, you know, some stupid shit. I'm sorry. I may have missed this. Have we learned what was in the bag? I don't know.

No, we don't. What do you think's in the bag? I honestly, because I can't imagine he actually gave her anything of value. And he certainly didn't give her like, here's, here's, you know, the pass to the presidency. Because again, we have to like, we have to just remember what the context here is. The context is we removed the president of Venezuela. We went in, we killed a bunch of guys. We took him home.

And we can argue about whether or not that's a good or a bad thing. And then Donald Trump was just like, we're going to leave his second in command in charge. And also, we're going to take the oil. And also, we're going to take the oil and the money from the oil is going to go into a slush fund held by the Qataris. And I'm going to control that Congress isn't really going to have anything to do with. This whole sequence of events is completely bananas. But the bag, I'm sure I really want to know what's in the bag because I can't imagine, like, I can't imagine. What's the worst thing that could be in the bag?

Like the most ridiculous. White House pens. Here's some White House pens. Here's a bag of White House M&Ms. You know the White House Eminems? I've always wanted a bag of the White House M&Ms. I don't know that I would trade my Nobel Prize in physics for the bag of M&Ms. I don't think I would do that.

But if I got a, I swear to God, it's, it has to be something like that. It's got to be, I think it's got to be like, it's like the Melania Trump DVD that's coming out of her movie. Sign-iner. She got a screener. It's a screen. Hey, Machado, no one's seen this. It's for you. No, it's seen this.

I want to get, could you, could you give me your take? The, no, I just think it would be, uh, I think it, it has to be something really chintzy. Maybe he took a picture of himself wearing the medal and signed it and did you know his inscription? Like two, two, Machado. Like, I just, I need to know what's in that bag. I need to know what's in that bag. I want to know.

I got to, what's in the bag? What's in the bag? What's in the box? He put up a post on True Social just recently. It's nothing revelatory. It says it was my great honor to meet Maria Karina Machado, Venezuela today. She's a wonderful woman who has been through so much.

Maria presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Oh my God. It's painful. There is a historical parallel. Actually, there's not really historical parallel. The closest parallel to this. was this famous story involving Robert Kraft, the owner of Patriots,

who went, I reread this after this, went and visited Russia, some sort of business. He knew some businessman who was doing business in Russia. Went over there. He met Vladimir Putin, showed Putin his Super Bowl ring. Putin asked to try it on, put it on his fingers, off corner craft, and said, you could kill someone with this. And then he put it in his pocket and left.

And I showed it to him and he put it on. and he sort of enjoyed it so he kept it on. And apparently, apparently, according to crafts were telling of this, he was like, what the fuck? Like, that kind of means something. He didn't say it's Putin. But he was like trying to figure out how to get it back. And the Obama State Department was like,

it would be best if he just considered that a gift to the Russian delegation and just leave it at that. In this case, we're Putin. And the gift is not a Super Bowl ring. it's a Nobel fucking peace prize. Oh my God. We can debate which is more valuable. We can have that argument. But the, but the, but like I, it really is, it really is Donald Trump admired.

And so the Putin thing was the first thing I thought of when I saw this. Because I was like, this is exactly what happened with Kraft. This is the Kraft Putin story, except he orchestrated it all specifically to do this. It's not like Putin didn't like, oh, yeah, Putin didn't organize it. Yeah. question was like, hey, why do you come here and give me your Super Bowl ring? Instead, it was just, they were just chatting and Putin because he thinks people are there to give him things because they usually are. Was like, oh, this is entirely different. This is Donald Trump was like, I deserve this.

It would be nice. It'd be really a shame if something happened to your country, like it got thrown into turmoil and chaos if I didn't get this Nobel Peace Prize. And, uh, you know, well, everyone, Everyone who's part of this should be embarrassed. This is embarrassing. It's so crass. It's so pathetic and weak and silly. But here we are. Yeah.

I'm sorry. Because this is the thing that drives me the craziest is that I, for the longest time, even during Trump one, I would always say I'm not, I refuse to be embarrassed for America. Like this is not, you know, Donald Trump does not, you know, he's not representative of all of us. even if he's the president, even if he's doing terrible. I am, I am actually embarrassed. I am embarrassed for America. I am embarrassed for America in, in, with all of the, with all of the Greenland stuff.

This is, this is all happening in the backdrop of like threats of doing something to take Greenland away from Denmark. I, like, it's insane. It's insane. And it is, it is, it is truly, it is truly just like, shameful stuff. Yeah. It's gosh. It's really gauche. All right.

Sonny, I appreciate you, man. Thank you for doing this. Go back to being a dad and stuff. I got to do the same as my end. Everyone who watched, thank you for watching. Subscribe to the bulwark YouTube page where you get ridiculous content like this. If you think we deserve a Nobel,

leave it in the comments. We appreciate that. Talk to you later.