The Kennedy Center announced Thursday that Bill Maher will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on June 28, 2026.
That announcement came exactly six days after the White House press secretary stood in front of reporters, looked into a camera, and said this was fake news.
The sequence of events here is worth laying out in order, because the full timeline is more remarkable than any single headline about it.
On March 20, The Atlantic broke the story that Maher had been selected as this year’s Mark Twain Prize recipient.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded the same day, “This is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung went further on social media, posting two words, “Literally FAKE NEWS.”
Hours after those denials were issued, The Atlantic’s reporter Michael Scherer updated his story to note that the White House had not merely denied the reports, it had called the Kennedy Center directly and made clear Maher would not receive the prize.
On Thursday March 26, the Kennedy Center announced the prize anyway.
Maher issued a statement. “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. 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.”
A White House official offered a revised explanation Thursday, saying, “This was false reporting at the time of the Atlantic’s reporting, but the situation changed after further conversations took place between the Trump-Kennedy Center and event organizers over the past week.”
What Is The Mark Twain Prize?
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor has been awarded annually by the Kennedy Center since 1998.
It is widely considered the highest honor in American comedy, the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award for the specific craft of making people laugh.
Recipients receive a bronze portrait bust of Mark Twain sculpted by Karl Gerhardt in 1884, and are celebrated at a gala ceremony that brings together comedians and entertainers from across the industry.
The ceremony is now carried exclusively on Netflix, which has also carried the past two years’ ceremonies honoring Conan O’Brien and Kevin Hart.
The complete list of past recipients gives a sense of the category is as star-studded as it gets. The list includes:
- Richard Pryor
- Jonathan Winters
- Bob Newhart
- Lily Tomlin
- Lorne Michaels
- Steve Martin
- Neil Simon
- Billy Crystal
- George Carlin
- Tina Fey
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Carol Burnett
- Jay Leno
- Bill Murray
- David Letterman
- Jon Stewart
- Will Ferrell
- Eddie Murphy
- Dave Chappelle
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- Adam Sandler
There are many others, but we cannot list them all. Maher joins that company.
Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, framed Maher’s selection in her announcement, “For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Prize has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy. For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse — one politically incorrect joke at a time.”
The Trump-Maher Relationship Briefly Explained
The backstory to all of this requires understanding one of the stranger ongoing feuds in American public life. Maher, 70, has been a vocal critic of Trump since the early days of his first term.
In 2013, Trump briefly sued Maher after the comedian joked on television that Trump’s father might have been an orangutan, a deliberate riff on Trump’s own years of demanding President Obama’s birth certificate.
The lawsuit was eventually dropped.
Their feud persisted through both of Trump’s terms. Then, in March 2025, Kid Rock arranged a dinner at the White House to give the two men an opportunity to speak directly.
The dinner happened. Maher went on his show afterward and said Trump had been “gracious and measured” and “not fake,” a characterization that drew significant criticism from Maher’s left-leaning audience.
The thaw did not last. On Valentine’s Day 2026, Trump posted a multi-post Truth Social screed about Maher, calling the dinner “a total waste of time,” calling Maher “very boring,” “relentlessly anti-Trump,” and “a highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT.”
Trump also posted seven articles critical of Maher to his Truth Social account in a single posting spree earlier in the month.
Maher responded on his show. “I know how women feel now, a guy buys you dinner and then expects you to put out,” he said. “I’m not that guy.” He also addressed the dynamic more seriously, saying,
“It’s a shame you can’t take criticism, because in an alternative universe where we could have further honest conversations, I could say things to you that might be quite helpful, like, Don, I’m going to level with you. I’m going to give it to you straight. Some people don’t like you.”
The Kennedy Center Context
The Mark Twain Prize ceremony will take place on June 28 — one week before the Kennedy Center closes for a two-year renovation starting July 4, 2026.
That renovation is being directed by Trump, who took control of the institution after returning to office, replaced its board members, ousted longtime president Deborah Rutter, and installed himself as chair.
The Kennedy Center has been renamed “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” a move that generated significant backlash and led multiple performers to cancel engagements at the venue. Ticket sales have slumped.
Conan O’Brien received the 2025 Mark Twain Prize before Trump had fully consolidated control of the center.
Trump notably did not attend O’Brien’s ceremony, which was dominated by jokes at the president’s expense.
The 2026 ceremony on June 28 will effectively be the last event of its kind at the institution before it goes dark, making Maher the final Mark Twain Prize honoree in this era of the Kennedy Center’s history.
What Has Maher Done TO Earn This Award?
Maher has been on television as a political comedian longer than most people in his audience have been adults. He hosted Politically Incorrect on Comedy Central and then ABC from 1993 to 2002.
He has hosted Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO since 2003, a run of over 22 years on the same show, which is an extraordinary tenure by any measure.
He has 42 Emmy nominations and won his first Emmy in 2014 as an executive producer on the HBO documentary series VICE.
He completed his 13th HBO stand-up special in 2025 before announcing he was stepping back from touring.
The Kennedy Center’s official citation reads, “For more than 25 years, Bill Maher has set the boundaries of where funny, political talk can go on American television.”
That framing is accurate whether you agree with Maher’s politics or not. No one has occupied his specific lane, irreverent, politically engaged, willing to criticize both parties and willing to have uncomfortable guests, for longer or more consistently.
The ceremony will stream on Netflix. A premiere date has not yet been announced.
