Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado defended her decision to present President Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal during a recent visit to the White House, calling it a gesture of gratitude from the Venezuelan people for U.S. support in their fight for freedom.

“I already said what I meant and what it means to the Venezuelan people to present President Trump with our gratitude for what he has done,” Machado told independent reporter Nicholas Ballasy on Capitol Hill.

Machado urges anti-communist unity in the Americas

Machado was in Washington this week meeting with lawmakers and rallying support for democratic movements across the region. Speaking to reporters, she called for the Western Hemisphere to be “free from communism,” arguing that once Venezuela is liberated, the broader effort will continue.

After Venezuela is free, she said, “we will keep working and we will have a free Cuba and a free Nicaragua.”

“This is a historic moment and we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for yes, the commitment, resilience, generosity and courage of the Venezuelan people, but also because we have counted with the support, vision and courage of incredible leaders such as the president of United States, Donald Trump, and members of this honorable Congress,” Machado told reporters.

A symbolic handoff: “Bolívar” to the “heir of Washington”

Machado presented the award roughly two weeks after U.S. military forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York to face criminal charges—an operation that stunned observers across the region and energized Venezuelans demanding democratic change.

Machado later explained that she told President Trump about a historic symbol of shared liberation between the U.S. and Latin America: a medal featuring President George Washington that Revolutionary War Gen. Marquis de Lafayette gave to Venezuelan revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar.

“Two hundred years in history, the people of Bolivar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal, in this case the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom,” Machado said.

President Trump later shared photos from the Oval Office showing him holding the framed prize, with Machado standing beside him.

Nobel Committee pushes back, critics pile on

Not everyone praised the moment. The Norwegian Nobel Committee emphasized that while a physical medal can change hands, the Nobel honor itself does not.

“Regardless of what may happen to the medal, the diploma, or the prize money, it is and remains the original laureate who is recorded in history as the recipient of the prize,” the committee stated. “Even if the medal or diploma later comes into someone else’s possession, this does not alter who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Norwegian Labour Party politician Raymond Johansen criticized Trump for accepting the medal, calling it “incredibly embarrassing and damaging.” And Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) also took a shot at the president, saying Trump looked “kind of silly.”

Trump and the Nobel: longstanding controversy

Trump has been openly vocal in the past about being passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize, especially after major foreign-policy efforts. He campaigned for it last October, before Machado ultimately won.

The president also linked the Nobel snub to his thinking about Greenland, according to a text exchange with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote Støre.

Trump later softened his remarks while speaking Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and subsequently announced a “framework” for a deal involving the Danish territory.