Decades Of Offending Everyone Just Earned Bill Maher Comedy’s Highest Honor

The selection of Bill Maher as this year’s Mark Twain Award recipient at the Trump Kennedy Center signals that art transcends partisan politics.

The Center confirmed on Thursday that Maher, a well-known actor, comedian, TV host, and political commentator, would be honored with the 27th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. A ceremony is scheduled for June 28 and will stream exclusively on Netflix at a later date.

The Mark Twain Award recognizes the “world’s greatest humorists” who have had an impact on American society, just like Twain did. 

“For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Prize has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy,” Roma Daravi, Vice President of Public Relations for the Trump Kennedy Center, said in a statement. “For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse – one politically incorrect joke at a time.”

Maher is best known for hosting “Politically Incorrect” from 1993 until 2002, followed by “Real Time” on HBO for more than two decades. The comedian received 41 Emmy nominations, winning once for “VICE” in 2014. He also received nominations for two Grammy Awards and a Tony Award.

The podcast host is considered to be classically liberal, meaning he calls out his party for drifting too far into radical territory. Maher made waves last year for having dinner with Trump, saying at the time that he kept an open mind and was pleasantly surprised.

Maher has been critical of trans ideology, open borders, and leftists generally living in a “Bluesky bubble.” He’s not fully red-pilled, however, and still fervently supports the legalization of marijuana. Maher also professes to be an atheist and had a lengthy debate with Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro on religion and morality last year.  

The comedian said the Mark Twain award was an honor.

“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 in response to the news, per the press release. “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.”

Previous recipients of the Mark Twain Prize are: Richard Pryor (1998), Jonathan Winters (1999), Carl Reiner (2000), Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009; rescinded in 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013), Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David Letterman (2017), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2018), Dave Chappelle (2019), Jon Stewart (2022), Adam Sandler (2023), Kevin Hart (2024), and Conan O’Brien (2025).