UPDATE: Abbott Does Not Get Nobel Peace Prize Medal, Remains Governor

Machado instead decided to "gift" it to President Trump during their Oval Office meeting today in return for … what?

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Thursday evening, January 15, 2025

Earlier today I reported on a bold plan by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to appoint Nobel Peace Prize Laureate María Corina Machado of Venezuela as the Governor of Texas for the next year if she would surrender her Nobel medal (pictured below) to him.

Read: María Corina Machado for Texas Governor!

As I reported, Abbott made a pretty tempting offer: one year’s leadership of the nation’s second-largest state and world’s ninth-largest economy with little chance she’s be murdered in her sleep by the CIA. It was a sweet deal for Abbott, too: he’d get to wave the medal around during his gubernatorial re-election campaign and those crucial early GOP candidate debates in the summer of 2027.

I can already hear you saying to yourself, “Self, how vain and idiotic do you have to be to think anyone would be impressed by your having only the medal, when the Peace Prize itself cannot be transferred, bought or bargained away? Surely you’d have to be a stupid, insecure ass to want to have the medal when you have not earned the prize.”

I know you will not really be surprised. And quit calling me Shirley.

Venezuela’s Machado says she presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize

Machado’s Nobel gamble: A peace offering to win over a wary Trump

Trump keeping Machado’s Nobel prize after Venezuelan opposition leader presents it to him

Trump accepts Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize medal

One would hope, of course, that Machado extracted some promises from Trump in return for surrendering the medal. A key role in the future Venezuelan government? Release of political prisoners? An agreement to share future oil revenues with the impoverished Venezuelan people?

But perhaps not. When the boneheaded chief of FIFA brought the actual World Cup to the Oval Office as part of a World Cup ‘26 promotion, Trump took it from him and kept it.

And, as any construction contractor in the greater New York area can tell you, Donald Trump’s word is not worth the Truth Socia post it is printed in.

I feel bad for Machado, though I suspect this isn’t the first time she’s been lied to. I really feel bad for myself and my fellow 31.3 million Texans who were looking forward to at least one year without Greg Abbott and his performative assholery.