A Nobel Prize for a Free Venezuela

María Corina Machado is the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Dear Readers,

This morning in Oslo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to María Corina Machado, the exceptionally brave leader of the Venezuelan opposition. I interviewed her just two months ago.

The destruction wrought by Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicholas Maduro is unparalleled in the recent history of statecraft. Venezuela used to be the second-richest nation in the Americas. Today, after twenty-five years of socialist dictatorship, it is among the poorest. The scale of human suffering is immense. As the system has grown weaker, the subjugation and brutality needed to prop it up has grown.

Few know that better than María Corina Machado. Years ago, she was Hugo Chavez’s most detested enemy. In 2024, she won her party’s primary election in the Presidential race, but was disqualified by the Maduro regime. Her ally went on to win the race at the ballot box by nearly 30 points, but the falsified results published by Maduro himself showed that he won.

This is the reality of socialism. It always requires a dictatorship to preserve, because of the immutable human desire to be free and make our own decisions. María represents the hope of freedom for an entire nation that has been in the darkness for nearly three decades. Her fight is important to Americans, too, because these regimes always metastasize.

The dictator Maduro has been allying with cartels and terorrists that directly affect our nation. And as a result, the United States has established a $50 million bounty for him.

In her American Optimist interview, she said this about the US: “...Maduro is weaker than ever before. What we need for the regime to know is that this has no way back, that we do have the support, not only of the United States, the Trump administration, which we do, and we’re so grateful to president Trump and to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, but we have the support of American society.”

She did our interview from hiding; many of her allies have been arrested or killed. We don’t know whether she will be able to safely travel to Oslo to receive the prize in December, but whether she can or not, I think you’ll be hearing more from her. In the meantime, I encourage you to listen to my talk with her from August.

It may not be obvious, but within Europe and to some extent the US, there is a huge overlap between the groups that support Hamas (disguised as support for Palestinians), the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Latin dictatorships like Venezuela and Cuba.

The Nobel committee, being composed of Norwegian legislators, leans left. That they have awarded the Peace Prize to a person like María is a huge slap against our enemies. The reactions from the red-green alliance say it all.

In our interview, we talked about how María is the eldest of four daughters. Her father was a successful business leader who inspired her leadership with the strong principles he taught his daughters. As an entrepreneur and father to five daughters, I hope that my daughters and every girl around the world will see María Corina Machado as an inspiring example; she is a worthy recipient of a Nobel Prize!

Joe