President Donald Trump did not win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, that honor went to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, and while you might think such a self-styled champion of democracy like MSNBC’s All In host Chris Hayes would applaud the selection, he instead ridiculed it as a “weird kind of ego consolation prize” for Trump. Also on Friday, Hayes would both misrepresent and repeat a hysterical article from The Guardian that said Trump would view not winning as an excuse to threaten Norway.
Hayes began, “Well, we have reached the end of the most ridiculous run-up to the Nobel Peace Prize I've ever seen. Donald Trump has been desperately, thirstily campaigning for the award. He obviously wanted to get the first phase of his Gaza peace deal, announced before the Nobel winner was announced early this morning, in, I think, some genuinely deluded hope that the committee would give him some kind of, like, last minute prize.”
He then added, “Unfortunately for Trump, it doesn't work that way. The committee made the decision on Monday. The Guardian reports that they were bracing for his wrath when he didn't get it.”
The actual article was somehow even dumber than that. Instead of claiming that the Nobel Committee was bracing for Trump’s wrath, Nordic correspondent Miranda Bryant reported that the entire country of Norway was. Of course, she cited no Norwegian government officials, anonymous or otherwise. Her only sources were “Kirsti Bergstø, the leader of Norway’s Socialist Left party and its foreign policy spokesperson” and pure speculation from “the newspaper columnist and analyst Harald Stanghelle.”
The Socialist Left Party is a fringe party that currently controls 9 out of 129 seats in the legislature and was founded in 1973 as part of an alliance of socialist parties that, for a time, included the Norwegian Communist Party.
As for Hayes, he rolled on, “Now, as a, I guess, weird kind of ego consolation prize, they chose Maria Corina Machado, who's a opposition leader in Venezuela who has very much aligned herself with Donald Trump, particularly his administration's desire for possible military intervention, intervention for regime change in her country. And Trump says he's totally fine with her getting it.”
Yes, Trump is fine with Machado getting it because Republicans aren’t going to object to recognizing people trying to get rid of their socialist dictatorships. Whether Trump wins next year remains to be seen, but in the meantime Machado deserves better than to be belittled as a “weird” “consolation prize” for Trump.
Here is a transcript for the October 10 show:
MSNBC All In With Chris Hayes
10/10/2025
8:51 PM ET
CHRIS HAYES: Well, we have reached the end of the most ridiculous run-up to the Nobel Peace Prize I've ever seen. Donald Trump has been desperately, thirstily campaigning for the award. He obviously wanted to get the first phase of his Gaza peace deal, announced before the Nobel winner was announced early this morning, in, I think, some genuinely deluded hope that the committee would give him some kind of, like, last minute prize.
Unfortunately for Trump, it doesn't work that way. The committee made the decision on Monday. The Guardian reports that they were bracing for his wrath when he didn't get it. Now, as a, I guess, weird kind of ego consolation prize, they chose Maria Corina Machado, who's a opposition leader in Venezuela who has very much aligned herself with Donald Trump, particularly his administration's desire for possible military intervention, intervention for regime change in her country. And Trump says he's totally fine with her getting it.