Stand-up comedian, Real Time host and Club Random podcaster Bill Maher is set to receive the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts’ Mark Twain Prize for American Humour on June 28 in Washington, D.C.
Maher, who is a prominent Donald Trump critic surprised many Real Time viewers last year when he went to the White House for dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump, a target for much of his criticism and jokes, because he thinks it is important to sit down and talk with people he disagrees with.
Maher presented Trump with a list of disparaging names the president had called him over the years, which he said Trump graciously and with good humor autographed.
“For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse — one politically incorrect joke at a time,” she added.
“Thank you to the Mark Twain people: I just had the award explained to me, and apparently it’s like an Emmy, except I win,” Maher said in a statement. “I’d just like to say that it is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”
Initial White House Denial
The White House pushed back hard after The Atlantic last week reported comedian Bill Maher would receive the Kennedy Center’s prestigious Mark Twain humor prize.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “This is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award” while communications director Steven Cheung posted on X that the Atlantic story was “literally FAKE NEWS.”
Previous recipients of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize are Richard Pryor (1998), Jonathan Winters (1999), Carl Reiner (2000), Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009; rescinded in 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013), Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David Letterman (2017), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2018), Dave Chappelle (2019), Jon Stewart (2022), Adam Sandler (2023), Kevin Hart (2024), and Conan O’Brien (2025).
