{"id":664081,"date":"2026-06-29T09:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/664081\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T09:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:30:10","slug":"what-bill-maher-said-about-trump-as-he-received-kennedy-center-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/664081\/","title":{"rendered":"What Bill Maher Said About Trump As He Received Kennedy Center Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBill Maher<\/a> celebrated his ability to anger the right and the left as he received the Kennedy Center<\/a>\u2018s Mark Twain Prize<\/a>, with a message to those who complain about being mocked: Stop being ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe cited the center\u2019s chairman, Donald Trump<\/a>, who was not present, and his attacks on him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow the president, when he is in attack mode, never fails to say I am part of the lunatic left,\u201d Maher said. \u201cOkay, he\u2019s not wrong that there is one. I\u2019m just not part of it, and I\u2019m sure there is a lunatic right. And when either side gets mad at me because I put them in jokes, jokes that work, my message to them is simple: You want to not get mocked? Stop being funny. Then the jokes will work. When they are ridiculous, they do work, and when people laugh, you\u2019re caught.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cLaughter is involuntary. It\u2019s people\u2019s inescapable truth detector, whether they want to believe it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen The Atlantic first reported earlier this year that Maher would receive the prize, the White House said that would not happen. But after about a week, he was announced as the recipient. Netflix, which is streaming the ceremony later this month, also has a say in who will be honored, given that it has had rights to the ceremony.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier, Maher talked to reporters about the possibility of Trump showing up \u2014 \u201cbecause anything is possible with him\u201d \u2014 but that never happened. Instead, comedian Matt Friend came to the stage an imitated Trump, eventually demanding that he get the award. \u201cI get so many more laughs than this guy,\u201d Friend as Trump said. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust take it. I am used to losing awards,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher was recognized as a figure in comedy who embraced free speech and didn\u2019t play to just one side of the aisle. The ceremony featured extensive clips, dating to his days on ABC with Politically Incorrect, as well as his standup specials and podcasts. Throughout the ceremony, figures such as Arianna Huffington, Jay Leno and Woody Harrelson paid tribute, while Jerry Seinfeld spoke from Las Vegas. John Mellencamp closed the show with a performance.<\/p>\n

\n\tLouis C.K., facing the furor of sexual misconduct allegations, said Maher, \u201cHe offered to help me when no one else would.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhitney Cummings offered some of the most biting humor about Trump during the evening. \u201cI actually heard Trump may come tonight but he couldn\u2019t make it. He got caught in sex traffic.\u201d In an audience that included a handful of Trump administration figures like Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the quip got some ooohs, along with laughs.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher also called out the left, noting recent efforts to censor Twain\u2019s Huckleberry Finn because it uses racist language, even though it is in \u201cthe service of mocking racism.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe silly purists on the left want to ban it now, which just shows that if you hang around long enough and create something important enough, everyone hates you at some point, and that is when you know you are doing it right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher praised his audience, saying, \u201cPeople say they want honesty, they don\u2019t. They want to live in a bubble. They say they want to be challenged. They don\u2019t, except for my audience. They love it, and I love them for it. And I\u2019m sorry, I think that makes them better. Why? Because I don\u2019t ask what will please the audience. I ask what is true and they are OK with that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey are a unique group of people who do not demand to be pandered to, and in fact, want me not to do that, and it has been the honor of a lifetime to try and lead a backlash to groupthink.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Maher celebrated his ability to anger the right and the left as he received the Kennedy Center\u2018s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[36494,141,55926,96,59,34312,222528,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-664081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bill-maher","tag-donald-trump","tag-electionline","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-kennedy-center","tag-mark-twain-prize","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}