Bill Maher received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, even as the Washington institution remains trapped in a legal battle over President Donald Trump’s effort to overhaul it. The ceremony went on. The power struggle didn’t.
Maher said on the red carpet before the event, “This is the last show here for at least two years.” He added, “It is a beautiful building. They keep talking about how they need to renovate. It looks perfectly fine to me. I don’t see one thing that needs a single thing changed.” Those words landed like a small refusal. The building, the schedule, the future — all of it sits inside a fight over who gets to decide what happens to a public cultural institution.
Who Has the Power
The Kennedy Center has been at the center of Trump’s remaking of Washington, DC, and the limits he faces in enacting his wishes. Two weeks ago, the center complied with a judge’s order in removing Trump’s name from the building, which had been added by the president’s handpicked board of trustees. The administration has told the court the name is gone, but a tarp still covers the spot where it hung, leaving the removal hidden from public view. That’s the machinery of authority in plain sight: a court order, a compliant institution, and a name erased but not quite allowed to disappear.
The center, which Trump has sought to put his stamp on, was set to temporarily close its doors for a yearslong renovation, but is now facing difficult financial choices after a judge ordered it to continue operating. Plummeting ticket sales, artist withdrawals, political controversies and a diminished staff have made restarting a full-scale programming schedule a challenge, multiple sources familiar with the operation previously told CNN. The people inside the institution are left to manage the fallout while decisions made at the top keep shifting the ground under them.
What People Actually Did
Woody Harrelson joked onstage during the Sunday event, “Finally, an award from my dear friend, ironically at the Trump Kennedy Center. No — oh right, we fixed that.” The joke cut straight through the official varnish. The name had been there. Then it wasn’t. A tarp now hides the evidence.
Maher told CNN on the red carpet, “I’d rather be fighting and yelling — that’s his way of talking. I’d rather the channels be open; anything is better than the channels being shut off.” That’s the closest thing in the article to a grassroots ethic: keep the channels open, don’t let power close off speech entirely. It’s a small principle, but in a system built on gatekeeping, even that matters.
Maher has been a target of the president’s ire, but also dined with Trump at the White House in 2025. Maher praised the president after that dinner, though their relationship has remained tense. In February, Trump called Maher a “jerk,” dismissed their 2025 White House dinner as “a total waste of time,” and said the comedian suffers from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” The dinner, the praise, the insults — it all reads like elite theater, with the White House as one more room where access gets traded for attention.
What They Call Order
The White House in March initially denied that the comedian would be awarded the honor, which is an annual lifetime achievement award given by the Kennedy Center. Then the ceremony happened anyway. Maher said during his speech, “Believe me, when they asked me and called and said, ‘Would you accept this?’ I did not have to ask twice. Of course, after the president tried to get the show canceled, they actually did have to ask twice.” The line carried the whole mess in one breath: pressure from above, a threatened cancellation, and a public institution trying to keep its own event alive under political interference.
As Maher was accepting his award, he was “interrupted” by the president — or rather, comedian Matt Friend’s portrayal of him. Friend joked, “Why are we giving this low-ratings, lightweight jerk the Mark Twain Award?” repeating insults the president has used against Maher. The joke worked because the insult was already part of the official atmosphere. That’s how domination often speaks now: through mockery, branding, and the casual power to decide who gets honored, who gets erased, and who gets to keep the building.
The 27th annual ceremony, which will premiere on Netflix on July 21, featured guests including Louis C.K., Whitney Cummings, Jay Leno and John Mellencamp, many of whom made jokes revolving around Trump. Jay Leno joked, “President Trump not happy about Bill getting this award. You think he’s mad now? Really, finds out next year the recipient is Bad Bunny,” referring to the Puerto Rican rapper, whom Trump has criticized. Guests on the red carpet emphasized the importance of comedy in the divided political environment. Radio host Stephen A. Smith told CNN, “Just because we are on opposite sides of the aisle, doesn’t mean we don’t relate to the opposite side from time to time.” Maher said in his speech, “When either side gets mad at me because I put them in jokes — jokes that work — my lesson to that is simple: You want to not get mocked, stop being funny.”
The joke is easy. The hierarchy isn’t. The institution still has to answer to a judge, a president, donors, staff shortages, and the wreckage left behind by political meddling. The people at the bottom keep the place running while the people at the top argue over whose name gets covered by a tarp.