The Trump administration insists Bill Maher will not be receiving the prestigious Mark Twain Award for American Humor.
“This is fake news,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday as reports circulated that the Real Time host was going to enter the pantheon of comedy with the honor. “Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award.”
“Literally FAKE NEWS,” White House Communications director Steven Cheung proclaimed today.
Handed out by the Kennedy Center (which the MAGA crowd likes to call a different name), the Mark Twain Award has inducted the likes of Richard Pryor, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart, Lily Tomlin and Eddie Murphy in the decades since it was first introduced in 1998. As of now, and maybe not until 2029 at the earliest, Maher will not be joining the list of recipients, which also has rewarded Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels, Carol Burnett and David Letterman.
Mel Brooks and the late Robin Williams refused the award.
Reps for HBO, which shows Real Time, and Netflix, which shows the Mark Twain Award presentation, did not respond to a request or comment on Maher getting or not getting the prize.
Perhaps the comedian will address it tonight on the latest episode of Real Time; the show is recorded just hours before its late-night airing.
Beyond a dinner detente facilitated by Kid Rock a year ago, Maher and Trump have had a tempestuous relationship for more than a decade. In the last few weeks it has flared up again, with POTUS posting late last month of Maher: “it was a total waste of time for me to have this jerk at the White House.”
On his February 21 show, Maher said: “It’s so funny, because I got so much sh*t from the left for reporting honestly that in person, he was very different, very nice, very gracious. And then he says, ‘No, you were scared.’ I’m like the Democrats with an election, I just can’t win.”
Boys will be boys, and take their ball home with them when they want to.