![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/trumpmaher1500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotos: Kristin Callahan\/Everett Collection, HBO\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Given their recent history, reports earlier Friday that Bill Maher<\/a> had been offered the Mark Twain Prize<\/a> with President Trump<\/a>\u2019s blessing seemed surprising.<\/p>\n Sure enough, The Atlantic was forced to retract its story<\/a> that Maher had been selected to receive the Kennedy Center\u2019s highest honor in comedy.<\/p>\n The earlier report cited three Kennedy Center staffers who said Maher had been offered the prize with Trump\u2019s support, and that an official announcement was imminent.<\/p>\n Hours later\u2014and after the story had already been picked up by multiple outlets\u2014the magazine updated its reporting with a stark reversal: The White House had intervened to shut it down.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award,\u201d Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt<\/a> said in a statement, after the administration apparently contacted the Kennedy Center directly.<\/p>\n The episode marks the latest twist in the long\u2014and increasingly erratic\u2014relationship between Maher and Trump, who have spent the better part of the past year trading barbs despite a brief detente following Maher\u2019s widely criticized April 2025 White House dinner with the president.<\/p>\n That d\u00e9tente has long since evaporated.<\/p>\n As LateNighter recently reported, Trump went on a lengthy Truth Social tirade<\/a> against Maher last month, calling the Real Time host a \u201chighly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT\u201d and lumping him in with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert\u2014frequent targets of the president\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n