Trump Gets Roasted on Bill Maher’s Night
· The Atlantic
The Kennedy Center was ready for a night of comedy yesterday. But before guests even reached the red carpet, the building presented a setup of its own. A large tarp was still hanging across the building’s facade, blocking any view of the spot where Donald Trump’s name had been added and then taken away following a court order. Inside, the punch lines practically wrote themselves.
Officially, comedians had gathered there to pay tribute to this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the talk-show host Bill Maher. Onstage, comic after comic—including Jay Leno, Louis C.K., and Whitney Cummings—took potshots at the president while celebrating Maher’s contrarian posture and decades-long joy at sparing neither the left nor the right. “Finally, an award for my dear friend, ironically at the Trump Kennedy Center,” the actor Woody Harrelson told the audience. “No, oh right—we fixed that.”
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Cummings imagined a Kennedy Center transformed by Trump, joking that under his influence, the Washington arts complex’s fall lineup would include a “three-month run of white Hamilton.” Another joke—that Trump missed the ceremony because he was caught in “sex traffic”—drew a mix of laughter and groans before Cummings revealed she had been instructed not to use it. “The thing about comedy is that we aren’t scared,” she said. “We try not to be scared of the people that bully. It’s something I love so much about Bill Maher: He bullies the bullies.”
As Maher took the stage to accept his prize at the end of the night, he was “interrupted” by the popular Trump impersonator and comedian Matt Friend, who emerged from the crowd to gripe about Maher. “Why are we giving this low-ratings, lightweight jerk the Mark Twain Award?” Friend said, repeating insults the president had used against Maher in a Truth Social post earlier this year.
The bit between the two comedians emphasized Maher’s feud with Trump, whose administration in March denied reporting in The Atlantic that Maher would receive the Twain Prize, only for the Kennedy Center to announce the next week that Maher was indeed the choice. For years, Maher lampooned the president on his HBO talk show, Real Time With Bill Maher, before the two met last spring in a highly publicized dinner at the White House (along with some famous Trump supporters), drawing backlash against Maher from figures including Larry David.
“We all know that Bill got some heat for having dinner with President Trump, but everyone missed that he went there to prove a point that he’s been trying to prove for years,” Cummings said during last night’s ceremony. “Seeing Donald Trump, Dana White, and Kid Rock together in the White House once and for all proves there really is no God.” (Maher is an outspoken atheist and a critic of organized religion.)
In his acceptance speech last night, Maher delivered a broad defense of comedy’s role in challenging power—and of his frequent refusals over the years to soften his views in the face of criticism.
He praised Mark Twain’s maxim that “if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything,” arguing that comedians have an obligation to follow that principle even when doing so invites blowback. “If you ask me what I’m proudest of in my whole life,” he said, “it’s simply staying on—staying on the air for 33 years without ever pulling a punch.” And he cast laughter as a kind of public verdict. “Laughter is involuntary,” Maher said. “It’s people’s inescapable truth detector, whether they want to believe it or not.”
Yesterday’s ceremony echoed the dynamic of last year’s Twain event honoring Conan O’Brien, when performers also used the stage to tweak Trump after his February 2025 takeover of the center. Since then, Trump has replaced much of its leadership and board, redirected its programming, and sought to remake one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions. The changes prompted artist cancellations, revenue declines, and staff departures before a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s effort to close the Kennedy Center as well as the board’s renaming of the complex.
The tarp outside the ceremony served as a reminder that the fight over the institution is far from over. Yet for a few hours last night, an older Kennedy Center prevailed.
The atmosphere in the audience was a notable contrast to recent Kennedy Center spectacles, including First Lady Melania Trump’s documentary premiere, where much of the Trump administration’s leadership walked the red carpet. Instead, at the Twain Prize, a packed Concert Hall recaptured some of the bipartisan flavor that used to characterize the center’s marquee events. Democratic lawmakers such as Senator John Fetterman and Representative Ro Khanna (who have both been guests on Maher’s shows) appeared alongside the Trump health official Mehmet Oz and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick, whose wife is a trustee, told me he has been “helping out” with Kennedy Center board proceedings during its legal fights.
July could bring another volatile chapter. According to a June 19 court filing, Kennedy Center trustees will weigh three options next month: a complete closure of the building with no programming; a partial closure with limited programming in areas unaffected by the renovation; or a series of phased closures to address the structure’s serious needs but leaving programming intact.
Last week, two employees at the center told me they are eager for their own clarity—not only about the future of the institution, but their role within it. The center’s multiple lawsuits, sweeping layoffs, union disputes, and strained operations have left the staff in limbo. A crisis facing the Kennedy Center’s only remaining flagship tenant, the National Symphony Orchestra, seems likely to deepen.
Yesterday, at least, cultural observers were offered another reminder that there are limits to how much any president can redirect American culture, let alone a single arts center. Though Trump has often succeeded in making institutions and even events about himself—such as his stint hosting the Kennedy Center Honors last year—last night it had an unintended consequence. By making himself the central figure in the Kennedy Center’s story, he also made himself the night’s easiest target.