What’s the point of even being the president if you can’t do the one thing that would unite all Americans? President Donald Trump has many unpopular opinions. From immigration to the economy to the movies Paramount should be making, Trump is a pretty effective bad-take engine. But as the old saying goes, “Heartbreaking! The worst person you know just made a great point.” President Trump reportedly doesn’t think that Bill Maher should receive the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Alas, the man can kidnap the president of a sovereign nation, but he can’t stop that, and after 40 years, Trump has finally reached the limit of what putting his name on a building can get him. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Maher will receive the Prize on June 28 at the Trump-Kennedy Center, and the ceremony will be streamed exclusively on the home of bigoted, ideologically toxic comedy: Netflix. The whole thing begs the question: Has the Kennedy Center voting board even heard Club Random?
“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,” Maher said, presumably with that smug, “did I really just say that” look on his face. “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.”
This is all to the chagrin of the White House, which is in deep, deep denial that someone as unfunny as Maher could receive the Prize. Considered quite prestigious, the honor had previously gone to Conan O’Brien, Steve Martin, George Carlin, Neil Simon, Jay Leno, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Bill Cosby, and—you know what? It’s fine. He can have it. Regardless of the body’s inconsistent track record, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had some big feelings about Maher getting it. “This is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award,” she said last week. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung doubled down on Leavitt’s attempts not to appear too mad about Maher’s smug, centrist brand of provocation receiving the honor. “Literally FAKE NEWS,” he said. It was all for naught.
“For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Prize has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy,” said Roma Daravi, VP of PR for the Trump-Kennedy Center. “For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse – one politically incorrect joke at a time.”
Davari is clearly referring to such politically incorrect jokes as the time Maher referred to himself as a racial slur (yes, that racial slur) in an interview with then-seated Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Or the time he said Islam is “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will fucking kill you if you do the wrong thing.” Or the time he made buddy-buddy with white supremacist Milo Yiannopoulos on Real Time, who used the national audience to promote transphobic vitriol and call Black Lives Matter a terrorist group. Thankfully, social ills like Islamophobia, racism, transphobia, and misogyny have been completely eradicated from American life because, as Maher says, sunshine is the best disinfectant. We have Maher and his obsession with booking Anne Coulter to thank, in part, for the completely manageable and totally sane society we have today. Can we propose a new rule: Stop encouraging Bill Maher.
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