Comedian Bill Maher has offered free advice for politicians, including President Donald Trump, on how to deal with being mocked.
Maher, 71, received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Sunday for his storied career in comedy, and praised his own ability to appeal to a politically diverse audience.
The comedian has had a complicated relationship with the president, with the pair swapping insults on TV (Maher) and social media (Trump), after Maher was invited to the White House last year for dinner.
The meal was arranged by MAGA rapper Kid Rock, with Maher saying on his HBO show Real Time, they both believe “there has to be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 miles away.”
Afterward, Maher said, “Trump was gracious and measured, and why isn’t he that in other settings?” Maher also got the president to sign a printed sheet listing 60 insulting remarks he had made about Maher over the years.
While Trump did not attend Maher’s award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, he was personally name-checked during the comedian’s remarks on political jokes.
“Now the president, when he is in attack mode, never fails to say I am part of the lunatic left,” Maher said, as reported by Deadline.
“Okay, he’s not wrong that there is one. I’m just not part of it, and I’m sure there is a lunatic right. And when either side gets mad at me because I put them in jokes, jokes that work, my message to them is simple: You want to not get mocked? Stop being funny.”
He added, “When they are ridiculous, they do work, and when people laugh, you’re caught. Laughter is involuntary. It’s people’s inescapable truth detector, whether they want to believe it or not.”
During her appearance at the Kennedy Center, comedian Whitney Cummings referenced Maher’s dinner at the White House, which also included UFC CEO Dana White, joking, “Seeing Dana White, Donald Trump, and Kid Rock all together at the White House really proves there is no God.”
This year, Maher called out Trump’s UFC birthday bash, stating, “Our redneck president is turning 80, and to celebrate there is a UFC fight on the [White House] lawn. So the emperor is holding gladiator games on his birthday.”
He has also compared Trump’s slamming his TV ratings to the president’s sinking approval ratings and said he has done “things that are racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic and corrupt.”
Trump, in return, called Maher “a weak and ineffective person” as well as a “moron” and “pathetic.” In a lengthy rant in February, he called Maher a “lightweight” and “ANTI TRUMP,” then dismissed their dinner, saying it was “a total waste of time for me to have this jerk at the White House.”
Ahead of his award, Maher was interviewed on the red carpet by CNN and was asked about Trump’s recent Truth Social posts about him.
“The last 4 or 5 times… it‘s all back to yelling and screaming. I‘m terrible. I‘m a lunatic liberal. I‘m a lunatic. I‘m a lightweight. I‘m a jerk. So we‘re back to that. It‘s OK,” he said.
Maher added, “I would rather be still talking than the politics of, `You don‘t even exist. You‘re too deplorable even to acknowledge.’ I‘d rather be fighting and yelling… that‘s just his way of talking to people. You know, you just have to accept it. I‘d rather the channels be open, anything is better than channels just being shut off.”
During his speech, Maher also called out the left’s attempt to censor Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for containing racist language, saying the classic book was in “the service of mocking racism.”
“The silly purists on the left want to ban it now, which just shows that if you hang around long enough and create something important enough, everyone hates you at some point, and that is when you know you are doing it right,” he said.
The comedian also used his award to reflect on his audience, who, he said, was different to most.
“People say they want honesty, they don’t. They want to live in a bubble. They say they want to be challenged. They don’t, except for my audience. They love it, and I love them for it.”
Maher said he believes that makes his audience “better” than others, and that he does not ask what will please them, but what is true, which they are OK with.
“They are a unique group of people who do not demand to be pandered to, and in fact, want me not to do that,” he said. “And it has been the honor of a lifetime to try and lead a backlash to groupthink.”
