US President Donald Trump’s brushing aside of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as a potential interim leader of Venezuela, stems from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize last year, the Washington Post reports.
Citing two sources close to the White House, the report says that Machado’s efforts to praise Trump after she won the award were not enough to placate the US president, who openly covets the award and feels he deserved to receive it.
“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” one of the sources says.
Machado’s acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” the person says.
Washington is instead working with deposed Nicolas Maduro’s vice president, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who said yesterday that the operation to capture her predecessor had a “Zionist tint” to it.
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