Trump Wants to Take a Nobel Prize That Isn’t His

Summary

Bulwark Takes: "Trump Wants to Take a Nobel Prize That Isn’t His"

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Date: January 11, 2026
Host: Ben Parker
Guest: Mona Charon
Main Theme:
This episode humorously critiques Donald Trump’s bizarre reaction to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Karina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize. The hosts dissect Trump’s apparent longing for the prize, the absurdity of the situation, and his persistent tendency to misunderstand symbolism, all while drawing parallels with his fixation on physical “stuff” and outdated political myths.

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1. Setting the Scene: Trump, Machado, and the Nobel Prize

• [01:00] Ben Parker opens by noting that while Bulwark often delivers deep analysis, this episode is dedicated to "pointing and laughing" at a surreal news cycle moment involving Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Trump held a press conference after the raid in Caracas that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the US on charges. When asked about Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Karina Machado, Trump responded dismissively:
  • "She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect." (Trump, quoted at [02:01])

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2. Machado and the Nobel Prize: Trump’s Obsession

• Machado, unable to run for president, designated a stand-in who won two-thirds of the vote. She’s lauded as a national and international heroine.
• The panel reflects on the political back-and-forth:
  • Talk of Machado dedicating her Nobel Prize to Trump, which the group views as both "smart politics" and "disgusting" ([02:52]-[02:59]).
  • Surreal New York Times headline: “After Machado offers her Nobel, Trump says it would be an honor to accept it." ([03:04])
  • Trump declares openness to meeting Machado if she’ll "give him her Nobel Peace Prize":
    • “Well, I understand she’s coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her. ...That’d be a great honor.” (Trump, quoted at [03:22])
• The hosts lampoon Trump’s apparent belief that the Nobel Committee would somehow recognize him as the legitimate laureate if Machado simply hands over the award:
  • “Does he think the Nobel Committee in Norway is gonna be like, ‘Oh, dang, fooled us’?” (Ben Parker, [03:55])

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3. Materialism, Symbolism, and Trump’s Simplicity

• The hosts explore Trump’s literalist, “widget-trader” view of the world:
  • He prizes material trophies and fails to grasp the abstract or symbolic value of honors like the Nobel ([06:33]-[06:58]).
    • “Is there a word for that? ...Materialism. Oh yeah, thank you.” (Ben Parker and Mona Charon, [06:48]-[06:58])
  • Trump’s thinking is illustrated as primitive, fixated on what can be touched or possessed ([06:48]-[08:15]).
• Example: Trump’s simplistic take on Venezuela’s oil reserves, not realizing it requires immense capital and technology to extract, unlike Saudi oil ([08:09]-[08:15]).
• Ben quips about Trump’s shallow understanding:
  • “The future of the global economy depends on a man who looked at a car and said...‘Everything’s computer.’” (Ben Parker, [08:30])
  • “Everything’s computer.” (Trump, imitated at [08:42])

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4. Stuck in the Past: Trump’s Castro Myth and Refugee Narrative

• Analogy to Trump’s fixation on the Mariel Boatlift (1980):
  • Trump repeats claims that hostile regimes “empty their prisons” and send criminals to the US—an exaggeration rooted in Cold War myth ([09:15]-[10:20]).
  • Quote from Trump at a press conference (imitated):
    • "Regime emptied out their prisons, sent their worst and most violent monsters into the United States to steal American lives." (Imitation, [10:04])
• Mona clarifies the facts:
  • Actual data showed the majority of refugees were not criminals ([10:28]).
  • Contrary to anti-immigrant rhetoric, the Miami economy actually boomed thanks to the influx ([10:39]-[11:19]).

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5. Obama’s Nobel and Trump’s Jealousy

• Ben and Mona argue Trump’s Nobel envy is rooted in Obama receiving the prize “for not being Bush,” which Trump views as unjust ([11:27]).
• Trump reasons, “If Obama can get a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing, so can I,” explaining his determination to claim one by any means ([11:27]).

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6. Notable Quotes & Moments

• Mocking Trump’s confusion:
  • “She wants to put it on himself like he did with the FIFA thing.” (Ben Parker, [03:50])
• On the Nobel Committee:
  • “How do they show their faces in public in Norway?” (Mona Charon, [04:47])
• Lampooning misplaced priorities:
  • “We know what he wants. ...Even though by his standards at this point, it’s a paltry amount.” (Mona Charon, [05:11])
  • “Unbelievable.” (Mona Charon, [06:11])
• Characterizing Trump’s worldview:
  • “…He’s obsessed with physical stuff. …He doesn’t get that. He’s obsessed with physical stuff.” (Mona Charon, [06:59])
  • “He’s so trapped in the past…” (Mona Charon, [08:43])

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7. Conclusion and Tone

• The episode closes with the hosts reflecting on the absurdity and potential consequences of Trump’s behavior—and a tongue-in-cheek promise that future Bulwark episodes might be “more informative,” though pointing and laughing is sometimes all that’s left.
  • "We're going to have more of these Bulwark Plus Takes. Maybe they'll be more informative than this. Maybe they'll be more pointing and laughing.” (Ben Parker, [end])

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Overall Tone and Takeaway

The hosts maintain a mix of incredulous amusement and exasperation. Their tone is informal and sardonic, emphasizing the farcical nature of Trump’s fixation on acquiring symbolic trophies and his misunderstanding of complex international issues. The episode underscores a broader point: even the world’s most prestigious symbols are at risk of being reduced to props in a spectacle for those obsessed with material status.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking sharp and funny political analysis of today’s surreal news moments—particularly those involving Trump’s ego and, now, hypothetical Nobel ambitions.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Ben Parker from the Bulbour here, joined by Mona Charon. We're. We have a ton of videos where you can get informed to get deep analysis from all of our experts about the news. But this one, we just kind of want to point and laugh because sometimes that's all we can really do. Let me just, let me just set the stage here about this whole Trump, Maria Karina Machado Nobel Prize thing as. And then we'll get into it. All right. Right after the raid in Caracas when they sent in the special forces and they got Nicolas Maduro, the dictator of Venezuela, and his wife, and they brought them out to the United States to face criminal charges. And a few hours later, Trump held this big press conference where he said, we're going to run Venezuela. And they said, oh, what about the Venezuelan opposition leader who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Karina Machado, who also, by the way, we apparently helped escape from, from Venezuela, where she was obviously living in hiding and all that. And Trump said just to remind us that he's not a gangster, she doesn't have the respect.

[C]

She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect.

[B]

Any comments so far?

[D]

Oh, my God. Take the cannoli, You know, so her designated. They didn't allow her to run in that election as everybody.

[B]

The Venezuelans didn't.

[D]

Right. The Venezuelan regime. So her stand in did win 2/3 of the vote. Okay. She's not just a national heroine, she's an international Heroine because she won the Nobel Peace Prize. Do people like, lust after Nobel Peace Prizes?

[B]

You think Trump does?

[D]

Are there people who would do anything to get a Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, but this is. No, this is a new level.

[B]

She had dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to him. She said, I'm dedicating this to Trump. It's smart politics on her part. It's disgusting.

[D]

No, it was. I'm just rolling my eyes because this is the world we live in where people have to feel like they have to do that.

[B]

Totally agree. Then we get this New York Times headline this morning, after Machado offers her Nobel, Trump says it would be an honor to accept it. And then it turns out that Trump is now open to. To meeting with Machado if she will give him her Nobel Peace Prize.

[C]

Would you accept the Nobel Prize she wants to hand to you? Well, I understand she's coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her. And I, I've heard that she wants to do that, that to be a great honor.

[B]

What does he think that means exactly? Okay, maybe she hands him, like, the little, like, medallion thing, right?

[D]

Medallion.

[B]

Maybe she gives him the, the money that comes with the prize.

[D]

I hope she has the little strap, because I'm sure he wants that strap.

[B]

She wants to put it on himself like he did with the FIFA thing.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

He's gonna do his dance. Does he think that, like, I don't know, like, on the website of the Nobel Peace Prize, they're gonna, like, have to change it because she gave him. Does he think that, like, the, the. The Nobel Committee in Norway is gonna be like, oh, dang, fooled us, like, I, I'm getting overexcited. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. I can'.

[D]

I mean, and the fact. Okay, so the psychology of this is just unbelievable. First of all, he said also in that same account of, yes, it would be an honor to accept her Nobel Peace Prize. It'd be an honor, he says. And then he said it was a disgrace that, that the Nobel committee didn't give it to him last year. And he said it was very embarrassing for them. Or words to that effect.

[B]

Yeah, I'm sure they're very embarrassed that they didn't give it to him.

[D]

Right.

[B]

How do they show their faces in public in Norway?

[D]

And how does he even imagine that people are going to react to this? I mean, that they're not going to say, oh, he is so pathetic that he's asking her to give him the medallion? Although, as you pointed out, he probably will also get the money. She'll probably give him the money too, because we know how that works with this president.

[B]

We know what he wants.

[D]

Yeah, we know what he wants. Yeah. Even though by his standards at this point, it's a paltry amount. What is it, half a million? 250 grand, something like that? It's not. It maybe a million. It's not a lot of money.

[B]

It's, it's. How many Qatari jets is that? Is that like.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Half of a percent of a Qatari jet or something.

[D]

But does he think that people are going to see that thing, which he'll put, I guess up next to all of his other stuff in the Oval Office and he'll display it. Does he think people are going to think, oh, this is evidence that the Nobel committee made a mistake and that Machado recognized that mistake and corrected it by giving the prize to the right guy? Does he actually think that's how people are going to interpret this?

[B]

Look, if this happens, I'll tell you what is that a bunch of the right wing infotainment system will start referring to Trump, who now this is how they'll phrase it, received the Nobel Peace Prize.

[D]

Get it? Nobel Peace Prize holder, Nobel Peace Prize possessor Donald Trump. Unbelievable.

[B]

And, and you know what? You know what? Maybe the New York Times will too. I don't want to, I don't give them too preemptive credit. They might say, trump, who received the Nobel Peace Prize from Maria Karina Machado, some mainstream media will do that and it'll be the stupidest thing.

[D]

True. And you know, it also does betray this other thing about Trump, which is he has this very primitive way of thinking that like, physical stuff is all that matters in the world. I mean, we saw and it has real world consequences.

[B]

Is there a word for that? Is there a word for being obsessed with like the material nature of things? Like an ism for like material obsession, materialism. Oh, yeah, thank you.

[D]

Sorry.

[B]

Go ahead.

[D]

But like, we. So real world consequences, right? I mean, he is so obsessed with trade in widgets, trade in stuff, physical stuff that you can touch and smell and hold in your hand, whereas he, so he completely misses that a huge amount of world trade and a huge amount of American exports are services. It's not physical stuff that you can touch, but it's hugely important to the economy. He misses that. It goes right over his head. He doesn't get that. He's obsessed with physical stuff. You know, even with this Venezuela thing. Right. He thinks that by having hold of the oil, which is, we don't need oil right now. I mean, we're, we have massive amounts of our own. Besides which, the price is low. So the last thing the oil companies want is a whole new source of oil. But in any event, he, he doesn't recognize, he thinks, oh, there's oil on the ground, as somebody was putting it. You know, unlike in Saudi Arabia where you can stick a straw in the ground and basically oil comes out in Venezuela, it's very tarry and sticky and.

[B]

It requires all heavy sour or something like that. The most processing of any oil or something.

[D]

Right. It would take a huge amount of physical capital, intellectual capital, you know, investment, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, he just doesn't understand anything about that side of life in that sense. He's just simple minded. There, I said it.

[B]

I would like to remind you that in many ways, the future of the global economy depends on a man who looked at a car and said, and I quote, everything's computer.

[C]

Everything's computer.

[D]

He's so trapped in the past. I mean, in so many ways, on so many different levels, on so many different issues. I know we're going a little far afield here, but so I just wrote in this most recent piece, you know, in 1980, like Fidel Castro, there was a thing called the Marielle Boat Lift. Before most of you were born, I was alive. I remember the Mariel Boat Lift. A bunch of people started getting into little boats and going over to Florida. So many that the regime couldn't control it. And it was very embarrassing to Castro.

[B]

Part of it was also that this was an intentional outlet to get people dissatisfied with the regime out of Cuba so he could solidify his hold, he could solidify his.

[D]

And so, and so he decided for that reason to let them go. Partly for that reason, also because he couldn't stop them. And so he decided as a little gesture of contempt and spite, to also put on some of those boats some of his criminals from his jails and maybe even some mental patients. I don't know. So Trump gets this thought in his head from 1980 and ever since then. If he doesn't like a regime, he says they're sending, they're emptying their prisons, they're emptying their mental asylums, they're sending them all to us. He said that about Venezuela, even as recently as the press conference. After the capture of Maduro, the Maduro.

[C]

Regime emptied out their prisons, sent their worst and most violent monsters into the United States to steal American lives. And they came from mental institutions and insane asylums. They came from prisons and jails.

[D]

It is a complete delusion. There's no evidence of this at all that any country has done it, except that one time.

[B]

And during the Muriel Boat Lift, the vast majority of people were not from prisons or mental. They were just refugees. It was some tiny percentage of them were sour apples sprinkled in by the Castro regime.

[D]

That's the majority. And by the way, can I make one other point? I'm sorry, I'm getting really pedantic, but what the heck? I can't remember the number of people who actually wound up in Miami, but it was thousands of people wound up in Miami. And economists use that as a real world experiment where they say, oh, all of a sudden there was a huge influx of immigrants. What did that do to the local economy, we wonder? Guess what? The economy expanded, okay? Far from taking jobs from locals and driving up poverty and blah, blah, blah. No, the economy boomed. They created jobs. They became consumers. They also hired other people.

[B]

I mean, and then they all voted for Trump eventually.

[D]

Their kids did, unfortunately. Yeah, but that could very well be changing now.

[B]

One of the other things from the past that Trump is obsessed with is the fact that Barack Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George Bush. And that's where this all comes from. And so Trump thinks. Yes, and so Trump thinks, like, you know, he's held onto this idea of the Muriel Boat Lift, this sort of false idea as for 45 years, he can certainly hold on to the idea of, for what has it been not even two decades now that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing. And he says, you know, I guess if Obama can get a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing, so can I. We're going to have more of these bull work plus takes. Maybe they'll be more informative than this. Maybe they'll be more pointing and laughing.