Turns out there was even more to Bill Maher’s twisty road to the Mark Twain Prize than we knew.
Maher was first informed he’d receive the prize months before it was publicly reported—and Donald Trump personally approved his selection, even as he publicly denounced the Real Time host.
That’s according to a New York Times profile of Maher published Monday—the same day Maher’s ceremony premiered on Netflix. In the piece, writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis reports that Maher was told in January that he would receive the honor, two months before The Atlantic first broke the news publicly and the White House denounced it as “fake news.”
When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Maher “will NOT be getting this award,” Maher says he thought that was that.
“Trump gets what he wants,” Maher told the Times. But after the Kennedy Center confirmed the selection, he said he was as confused as anyone: “It’s very unclear who’s in charge.”
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told the Times that the Mark Twain Prize is a collaboration between Netflix and the Kennedy Center, adding that in the years Netflix has streamed the ceremony, the prize has gone to the streamer’s preferred candidate. But that did not make the Kennedy Center incidental: Sarandos said Trump, in his role as Kennedy Center chairman, could have blocked Maher’s selection—but personally approved it instead.
“There was never a moment—and I talked to him a few times about this—when he wasn’t in support of Bill being the honoree,” Sarandos said of Trump, adding that he believes the president “respects the back and forth” between the two men.
The White House did not comment to the Times. A Kennedy Center representative declined to discuss the selection process in detail, saying only that “incomplete details were prematurely shared with [The Atlantic] while discussions were still ongoing.”
When Maher was officially announced in March, the reversal already seemed to fit the complicated Trump-Maher dynamic. Maher has spent years mocking Trump, while Trump has repeatedly insulted him in return.
That sniping continued in the lead-up to the ceremony. In May, Trump called Maher “weak and ineffective” on social media. In June, after Trump referred to him as “low ratings Bill Maher,” Maher fired back, pointing to the president’s own 35% approval rating.
On stage at the Kennedy Center, Maher leaned into the feud, saying Trump often calls him part of the “lunatic left,” and responding that while such a faction exists, “I’m just not part of it.”
Maher also framed ridicule as the price of public ridiculousness.
“You want to not get mocked? Stop being funny,” Maher said during his acceptance speech. “Then the jokes won’t work.”
Maher’s ceremony, which features tributes to the HBO host from Jay Leno, Whitney Cummings, Woody Harrelson, Louis C.K., Stephen A. Smith, Arianna Huffington, and John Mellencamp, is now streaming on Netflix.
There’s was no way for Bunghole Bill Maher to win that award on his own ‘merits!’ Only someone like Drumpf would give his ‘blessings’ for Bunghole Bill to get his grubby little hands on one!
Because Bunghole Bill Maher stop being funny a long, long time ago!