Kennedy Center nominates Bill Maher for Mark Twain Award, weeks after meeting with President Trump
After his spat with President Trump, Bill Maher will receive the Mark Twain Award from the Kennedy Center for the Arts.
When it comes to the 2028 presidential election, he says Bill Maher’s vote “has implications” for both Republican and Democratic candidates.
Maher spoke with Vice President J.D. Vance on HBO’s “Real Time” on Friday, June 26th. Marr began the conversation by thanking Vance for appearing on the show and lamenting the lack of Democratic politicians.
“They’re the ones I vote for. They’re the ones who won’t talk to me,” he said. “That’s weird, right? We can’t get (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). We can’t get (Zoran) Mamdani. We couldn’t get Kamala Harris.”
Maher, who has supported Democrats in the presidential race but is often critical of the party, then told Vance that he might support Republicans in the 2028 election.
“If this is where (Democrats) are going, then my vote counts,” Maher said. “The truth is, this has always been the case. Year after year, I don’t make judgments based on who has an R or a D. In fact, I always came to the conclusion that the Democrats were probably better, and I voted for them.”
But Maher told Vance that the “deal-breaker” for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination could be Vance himself, if, like President Donald Trump in 2020, he cannot accept the loss without falsely claiming the election was stolen.
“Under the Trump administration, there are two outcomes to an election: Either we win or they cheated. That… has to stop,” Maher said to applause. Vance didn’t completely agree, telling Maher, “I don’t think we should give the election away, but I don’t think that’s the case right now.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Mr. Maher grilled Mr. Vance on topics such as immigration, and the comedian claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s enforcement operations had been “too aggressive.” Mr. Maher told Mr. Vance that the Trump administration should admit that “you went too far” in this case, but Mr. Vance pushed back, arguing that “deporting people by law enforcement is never an easy process.”
“I appreciate your argument that it went too far, but nothing could have been done, and I don’t think there was an easy way to do it,” Vance added.
However, the two found some common ground during their chat, including when they criticized the news media. At one point, Vance even said he was surprised that Maher didn’t sound like a “crazy liberal.” Maher said that’s because “you don’t watch the show,” and quipped, “I know people in your administration who watch the show, and I hear about it all the time.”
Maher’s interview with Vance came after he was criticized for having a private dinner with Trump at the White House in 2025 and telling viewers afterwards that the president was surprisingly good-natured. Trump later posted on Truth Social that the dinner was a “total waste of time,” which Ma claimed was because “I never stopped criticizing Trump.”
But Maher regularly criticizes Democrats on his show. The comedian said on a 2025 episode of his podcast that Democrats are “very unpopular, and for good reason,” and also noted that he voted for Harris. “I didn’t vote for Trump. As I always tell my woke friends, we voted for the same person. It’s your fault she lost.”
Maher will receive the Mark Twain Award for American Humor at a ceremony on Sunday, June 28th.
