Machado Leaves With Petty Gift After Giving Trump Her Nobel Prize
It looks like Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado traded her Nobel Peace Prize for a bag of Donald Trump merch.
Machado was spotted walking out of the White House Thursday with a large red paper bag with Trump’s signature scrawled across it.
This isn’t the first time Trump has touted his dictator merchandise to foreign dignitaries, who are forced to exit the White House through a humiliating gift shop filled with hats adorned with slogans like “Four More Years,” “Gulf of America,” and “Trump Was Right About Everything,” among several others.
Machado told reporters Thursday that she “presented” her medal to Trump during their meeting, though she had already dedicated her prize to the U.S. president when she won last year. The Nobel Committee clarified over the weekend that just because someone gives someone else their prize, that does not transfer the title of Nobel laureate.
It appears that ICE choked a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant to death in a Texas detention facility.
A medical examiner told Geraldo Lunas Campos’s family that, unless a toxicology report comes back with something, he will likely rule his death a homicide, according to a recording reviewed by The Washington Post. But the Department of Homeland Security claims that Lunas Campos died taking his own life.
“Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life.... During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness,” a DHS spokesperson said, using very passive language. “Medical staff was immediately called and responded. After repeated attempts to resuscitate him, EMTs declared him deceased on the scene.”
Witnesses told the Post a very different story.
Fellow detainee Santos Jesus Flores watched at least five guards struggle with Lunas Campos after he refused to enter his unit, complaining that he was without his required medications. Flores then said he watched guards choking Lunas Campos while he said, “No puedo respirar” over and over, Spanish for “I can’t breathe.” Medics tried to resuscitate him for an hour before removing his body.
“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” Flores said.
If what Flores says is true, then McLaughlin’s previous explanation—that Campos just somehow “stopped breathing and lost consciousness”—is damn near malpractice. It’s unclear whether anyone will face any kind of repercussions for killing this man, given ICE agents’ total lack of accountability. An estimated 280 people have died in ICE custody since 2004, and four have died already this year. A just society would not allow this killing to go untried. But based on these killings—from Campos to Keith Porter Jr. to Renee Good—we’re far from that ever being a reality.
“I know it’s a homicide,” said Jeanette Pagan Lopez, the mother of two of Campos’s three children. “The people that physically harmed him should be held accountable.”
Donald Trump on Thursday finally got his greatest wish: to obtain a Nobel Peace Prize.
He didn’t earn it, of course. Last year’s actual recipient, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, told reporters that she “presented” her medal to Trump during a meeting the two had at the White House.
“I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, and I told him this,” she said. “Two hundred years ago, General Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington’s face on it. Bolivar since then kept that medal for the rest of his life.… It was given by General Lafayette as a sign of the brotherhood between the United States, people of the United States and the people of Venezuela in their fight for freedom against tyranny.
“And 200 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 had already dedicated her prize to Trump when she won it last year. And just because she gave it to him does not transfer the title of Nobel laureate to him, as the Nobel Committee clarified over the weekend.
It’s highly likely that Machado’s decision to give her medal to Trump is an attempt to win favor with the new self-declared leader of Venezuela. After directing troops to storm Caracas, nearly two weeks ago, and kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump announced that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez would take over as interim president.
He notably passed over Machado, saying that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader” because she lacked sufficient “respect” in Venezuela. And it appears that Machado’s gamble may not pay off, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ahead of Thursday’s........© New Republic
