Comedian Bill Maher was the guest of honour at the Kennedy Center on Sunday night.
But the presence of President Donald Trump was not far away. Moments after Maher accepted the prestigious Mark Twain Award for American Humour, Matt Friend, a prominent impersonator of the president, came on stage and, in Trump’s voice, joked that he would accept the award himself.
Trump was a punchline for other comedians and entertainers, including Whitney Cummings, Jay Leno and Woody Harrelson.
For the most part, the forks weren’t particularly biting. For example, Cummings said that under Trump’s influence, the Kennedy Center will host a ‘white Hamilton’. “And once Friends left the stage, Maher largely refrained from bashing the president. Yet the comments were notable for surfacing in an iconic performing arts venue that Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to bend in his favour, leaving its future uncertain for years to come.
Accepting the award, Maher ridiculed extremists in both political parties, rejecting what he called “group think”.
Maher said, “If you stick around long enough and create something important, at some point everyone is going to hate you.”
The ceremony in the Kennedy Center’s concert hall was not entirely political. There were plenty of jokes about Maher’s fondness for marijuana, his rejection of organised religion, and his penchant for controversy, including comments he made shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which led to the cancellation of his television show “Politically Incorrect”.
But the future of the Kennedy Center depended most importantly on this event.
Shortly after Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the Republican president fired most of the centre’s leadership and installed a board largely comprised of allies. It designated Trump as president and his name was added to the building’s iconic facade, sparking a legal battle that became a proxy battle over the limits of presidential power.
Trump later said that the Kennedy Center would close in July for a two-year renovation. But U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper overturned those plans in May, ruling that Trump’s name was illegally added to the building, and ordered it removed. The judge has also stayed the closing.
Trump’s name has come down from the building in compliance with the judge’s order. But the part of the building which was once covered with the letters of the president’s name is now covered with a tarpaulin. Complete closure is postponed. Kennedy Center lawyers have said they are not planning to produce programming at this time.
Cooper has asked for an update next month on how long the tarp will remain on the building. Currently, the last event scheduled for the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall is “The Freedom Gathering: A Musical Celebration” on July 3.
The legal battle turned into a saga that sometimes became the butt of jokes at Twain celebrations. At one point, Harrelson agreed to a court order to remove Trump’s name from the building, joking, “We fixed it”.
Before the ceremony, Lutnick said that Trump “wants to sensationalise this building”.
But others were more sceptical. Walking the red carpet before the ceremony, Leno said Trump’s actions at the Kennedy Center were both “hilarious” and “arrogant”.
“It’s not a war,” he said. “It’s not killing people. It’s not anti-Semitism. It’s a stupid name-hiding thing. I mean, what’s funnier than that? I mean, it’s just like, you know, high school with money.”
The friend said that as soon as he entered the building, he felt it had a “Hunger Games atmosphere”.
“It’s crazy,” he said of the changes brought by Trump.
Given Trump’s dominance of the Kennedy Center, Maher’s selection for the award was notable, as the two men have long had a strained relationship.
Before entering politics, Trump filed a $5 million lawsuit against Maher in 2013 for breach of contract. Appearing on Leno’s “The Tonight Show”, Maher said he would give $5 million to a charity of Trump’s choice if Trump could prove he was “not the offspring of his mother having sex with an orangutan”.
Trump claimed that Maher did not pay when he provided his birth certificate, leading to the lawsuit. Trump eventually abandoned it.
The Trump-Maher relationship came to a halt again earlier this year, when the president claimed on social media that he had wasted time sitting down to dinner with the comedian last year. Lutnick said Trump had written down and signed all of the critical comments he had made about Maher over the years.
“You have to be able to laugh at it,” Lutnick said. “The president can laugh at it. Bill Maher can laugh at it. And that’s what makes tonight great.”
Maher hosted Vice President J.D. Vance on his show over the weekend. Vance, who is promoting a book, said he watches the show and laughed at Maher’s monologue “even though you were making fun of me”. During the interview, Maher pressed Vance on the Iran war, immigration enforcement, and election conspiracy theories.
“You guys can have two outcomes to the election,” Maher told Vance. “Either we win or they cheated. This has to stop.”
The Twain Awards ceremony will air on Netflix on July 21.
