Bill Maher will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Sunday at the Kennedy Center, a tribute to a career that helped define a sharp-edged strain of American comedy. The honor lands at a venue still carrying the marks of a bitter fight over Donald Trump’s control of the institution.
The Kennedy Center announced Maher’s selection in March and said he has influenced American comedy “one politically incorrect joke at a time.” The choice fits the prize’s long tradition: since 1998, it has gone to performers and writers whose work has shaped the national conversation, including Conan O’Brien, Dave Chappelle, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Letterman, Carol Burnett and Tina Fey.
Maher’s name belongs in that line for a reason. He hosted Politically Incorrect for much of the 1990s, building a style that mixed provocation with political commentary and made him one of the more recognisable comedy voices of his era. The Sunday ceremony is expected to draw Woody Harrelson, Arianna Huffington and Jay Leno, adding to the sense that the prize remains a gathering point for major names in comedy and entertainment.
But this year’s celebration is taking place under conditions that would have seemed improbable when the award was announced. Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, fired much of the Kennedy Center’s leadership and installed a board largely made up of allies before naming himself chairman. He also had his name added to the building’s facade, a move that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper later ruled was unlawful and ordered removed.
Cooper also blocked Trump’s plan to close the Kennedy Center, after Trump said the building would shut in July for a two-year renovation. The name that was once on the facade is now hidden beneath a tarp, and lawyers for the Kennedy Center told the court this month that they are not planning for now to build out programming. That leaves the prize ceremony to proceed at a place that is still trying to define what parts of its future are settled and what parts remain in dispute.
The award itself is still the point. The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor has always been a statement about who helped shape the way the United States talks to itself through comedy, and Maher has spent decades in that conversation. What happens next is less about the applause on Sunday night than the question Judge Christopher Cooper wants answered next month: how long the tarp will stay on the building.
