Nobel Laureate Machado Suggests the Maduro Regime Helped Rig the 2020 U.S. Election Against Trump: 'No Doubt in My Mind'

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado has claimed that Nicolás Maduro and senior Venezuelan officials helped manipulate the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Donald Trump.

The allegations, offered without evidence, come as Trump renewed efforts to question the results of the election, escalating demands for election investigations and prosecutions, according to a Washington Post report.

"I have no doubt that Nicolás Maduro, Jorge Rodríguez, and many others are the brains behind a system that has manipulated elections in many countries, including the United States," Machado said on The Mishal Husain Show, a Bloomberg-produced podcast. Asked directly whether she believed Maduro bore responsibility for the 2020 result, she answered affirmatively.

Her remarks echo claims promoted by Trump during and after the November 2020 vote. At the time, Trump asserted that Republicans had won "by a lot," encouraged certification delays, and later urged his supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, where rioters sought to disrupt the counting of Electoral College votes.

The Washingon Post reported during the weekend that Trump has recently demanded that administration officials "find fraud," hired a lawyer involved in earlier challenges, and pressed allies to examine ballots and voting equipment in several states. "I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much 'gusto' as befitting the biggest scandal in American history!" Trump wrote Truth Social:

State and federal courts, election officials, and security agencies have repeatedly rejected claims of widespread fraud in 2020. Still, some Trump officials continue to seek ballot access, voter rolls, and equipment for renewed scrutiny. Critics say the effort is aimed at discrediting the electoral system. As Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told the Post: "everything that they're doing now is a relitigation of 2020."

Machado has increasingly aligned herself with Trump and his advisers in recent weeks as she dedicated her Nobel Prize in October to "the people of Venezuela and to President Donald Trump," calling the United States and "democratic nations of the world" essential allies in pursuing Venezuela's political transition.

Reporting by Reuters also revealed recently that Machado and members of her U.S.-based team met repeatedly with senior Trump officials earlier this year — including then–national security adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — as they sought to maintain pressure on Maduro. One opposition source described the strategy as a "high-stakes gamble," taken after protests, negotiations, and elections failed to dislodge Maduro.