María Corina Machado for Texas Governor!
Donald Trump has designs on the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s medal. But so does Greg Abbott.
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Thursday, January 15, 2026
“Beware the Ides of January,” said someone once. This year, it may prove true in the most bizarre of ways.
As we speak, the President of the United States is meeting with Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (“laureate” is Swedish for “winner”). Until recently, Machado was broadly recognized as the leader of the resistance to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. But Maduro slipped on a very big banana peel, and now is sitting in some sh*thole prison in New York, awaiting trial on drug-running and money-laundering charges, just like his fellow despot former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez. Unlike Hernandez, though, Maduro has not been pardoned, at least not yet.
Anyway, after Maduro had been kidnapped and renditioned by the United States military on January 3, people all over the world wondered whether Machado, the most well-known leader of the resistance in that country, might have some role in Venezuela’s governance going forward. But Donald Trump had a different idea. In a gaggle with reporters he said, “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect to be a leader.”
Thank Heavens Trump Is Not Jealous or Petty!
Of course, Trump was not pissed off that she had received the Nobel Peace Prize, even though he had lobbied relentlessly for it all year, to the point where the international soccer federation FIFA concocted a totally bullsh*t FIFA Peace Prize and awarded it to him to keep him from sabotaging this year’s World Cup Games.
Anyway, Machado is hoping to change Trump’s mind about her role in Venezuela’s future, purportedly offering to “share” her prize with Trump. The Nobel Committee says she cannot do it, but I would not put it past Trump to demand her actual Nobel medal as a trophy for his gaudy Mar-a-Lago mansion.
Greg Abbott Is Always Thinking
In the meantime, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has made an interesting counterproposal first reported here: he will let Machado be Governor of Texas for the remainder of his current term (until January 15, 2027) if she will dedicate her prize to him and surrender her medal.
Abbott makes an impressive case for the trade-off:
Venezuela is (slightly) larger than Texas, but who cares? So is Alaska, but Trump apparently forgot that when he said the other day that the U.S. does not want Russia as a neighbor.
Texas has a bigger population than Venezuela, so she could rule over more people moreover, Texas is growing while Venezuela is shedding people;
The Texas GDP is orders of magnitude larger than Venezuela’s, $2.6 trillion to $100 billion; and
The Texas flag is more recognizable around the world than Venezuela’s.
Of course, there is no way Abbott can legally transfer his office to anyone else, much less a foreign national and a woman. But who is going to stop him? Like Venezuela and, for that matter, Washington, D.C., the legislature and the courts are too politically and ethically compromised to serve as an effective check on a dictatorial executive. Abbott can just issue an executive order naming her governor and be done with it.
Machado can look forward to a year of peaceful leadership (the Governor’s Mansion in Austin hardy gets attacked any more), while Abbott runs for another term armored with a mere $87 million cash on hand.
Abbott for President in 2028
Abbott is playing a long game. He cherishes dreams of being president, but so far has no traction in the 2028 scrum for the GOP nomination. What better way to stand out from the crowd than to flash his own Nobel Peace Prize around at those early candidate debates? Take that, J.D. Vance! Take that, Marco Rubio! Take that, Ted Cruz!
And frankly, the people of Texas can look forward to a year of relatively good governance out of Austin. No razor wire or deadly buoys in the Rio Grande. No get-rich-quick schemes for voucher speculators. No pay-to-play deals allowing oil companies to force-feed poorly treated fracking wastewater to suburban neighborhoods.
And that may be the only downside to Abbott’s plan; after a year of María Corina Machado as “acting” governor, Texans may choose Gina Hinojosa to lead us into the future.