{"id":549752,"date":"2026-03-28T04:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549752\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T04:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:22:12","slug":"bill-maher-says-president-trump-tried-to-block-kennedy-center-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549752\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher Says President Trump Tried to Block Kennedy Center Honor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter a confusing swirl that included \u201cfake news\u201d denials from the White House communications team, Bill Maher<\/a> offered some clarity about being picked to receive the 27th Mark Twain Prize<\/a> for American Humor from the Kennedy Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe veteran host leaned into this week\u2019s big news during Friday night\u2019s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher<\/a> on HBO Max<\/a> by addressing it in the opening minutes of his monologue as he recognized there\u2019s been \u201ca lot of back and forth\u201d about whether or not he was actually going to get it. \u201cWe have reached a compromise. The compromise is that I am going to get it and then I\u2019m going to give it to [President Donald Trump],\u201d he joked. \u201cEverybody\u2019s happy. I just want things to work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLooks like they are now after the Kennedy Center confirmed Thursday that Maher would receive the 27th Mark Twain Prize for Humor at a ceremony scheduled for June 28 (and streaming on Netflix at a later date). The honor \u201crecognizes individuals who have had an impact on American society in the same vein as Mark Twain,\u201d and the organization\u2019s vp public relations Roma Daravi praised Maher for \u201cinfluencing American discourse \u2014 one politically incorrect joke<\/a> at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe official confirmation came a week after the Atlantic published a report<\/a> citing multiple sources that Maher had been selected to receive the prize and fielded an offer but the stamp of approval could be complicated due to his history with President Trump, who has oversight of the Kennedy Center. President Trump slammed Maher in February as a \u201chighly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT\u201d in a Truth Social post<\/a>, which detailed his White House dinner with the comedian that he called \u201ca complete waste of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the Atlantic published its story, Trump\u2019s communications deputies shot it down<\/a>. \u201cThis is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. \u201cLiterally FAKE NEWS,\u201d White House communications director Steven Cheung added. It\u2019s unclear how it went from \u201cfake news\u201d to being very real when the Kennedy Center confirmed it this week and whether or not Trump gave it his stamp of approval. <\/p>\n

\n\tMaher addressed the spokesperson denials on Friday night, but added that he just wants to say thank you. And he\u2019s \u201cnot looking for a fight\u201d nor is he mad at Trump for the back and forth. \u201cMe and the president, we have a complicated relationship that goes back to the orangutan lawsuit,\u201d Maher quipped, referencing a 2013 lawsuit<\/a> which found Trump suing Maher for comments he made during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Maher challenged Trump to provide a copy of his birth certificate to prove he\u2019s not \u201cspawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.\u201d Trump later withdrew the suit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis has been going on a long time, so him trying to block me from getting it \u2014\u00a0I respect the move. I respect the move. Keep the game going, baby, OK, I\u2019m all about engagement. Disengagement gets you nothing. You got to engage,\u201d continued Maher, who then turned his attention to the insults Trump has lobbed at him on Truth Social. \u201cWe\u2019re back to him calling me a \u2018jerk\u2019 and I\u2019m a \u2018lightweight ratings loser.\u2019 Get it off your chest, big man, OK, I\u2019m totally fine with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher even said he was \u201cproud of these last insults\u201d Trump tossed in his direction, and he added them to a long list that he brought with him to the White House. A split screen then showed an image of a sheet of paper with a White House logo and a long list of insults, many of which Maher read aloud. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo I would just like to say as a low ratings lightweight and a rather dumb guy and a pathetic, bloated sleaze bag, a dummy, a terrible student, a nervous, failing comedian and someone who was sick, insane, very sad, totally shot in, a crazy maniac, I am honored to accept the Mark Twain Prize. Thank you very much,\u201d he said. \u201cI will be there, Don, and I hope you will be too. I mean, the place is named after you now, you really should show up. You could show up. You could thank me in person for being one of the few people on the lunatic left who\u2019s glad you hit Iran and is hoping we win that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher\u2019s newest episode featured a one-on-one interview with U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official. His panel hosted CNN\u2019s Laura Coates and ESPN star Stephen A. Smith, who hosts Straight Shooter with Stephen A. and The Stephen A. Smith Show on SiriusXM and YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a confusing swirl that included \u201cfake news\u201d denials from the White House communications team, Bill Maher offered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[10161,88,1010,51879,240541,60021,92],"class_list":["post-549752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bill-maher","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo-max","tag-kennedy-center","tag-mark-twain-prize","tag-real-time-with-bill-maher","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}