What Bill Maher Said About Trump And The Left As He Received Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize: “You Want To Not Get Mocked? Stop Being Funny”

Bill Maher celebrated his ability to anger the right and the left as he received the Kennedy Center‘s Mark Twain Prize, with a message to those who complain about being mocked: Stop being ridiculous.

He cited the center’s chairman, Donald Trump, who was not present, and his attacks on him.

“Now the president, when he is in attack mode, never fails to say I am part of the lunatic left,” Maher said. “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. Then the jokes will work. When they are ridiculous, they do work, and when people laugh, you’re caught.”

He added, “Laughter is involuntary. It’s people’s inescapable truth detector, whether they want to believe it or not.”

When The Atlantic first reported earlier this year that Maher would receive the prize, the White House said that would not happen. But after about a week, he was announced as the recipient. Netflix, which is streaming the ceremony later this month, also has a say in who will be honored, given that it has had rights to the ceremony.

Earlier, Maher talked to reporters about the possibility of Trump showing up — “because anything is possible with him” — but that never happened. Instead, comedian Matt Friend came to the stage an imitated Trump, eventually demanding that he get the award. “I get so many more laughs than this guy,” Friend as Trump said.

“Just take it. I am used to losing awards,” Maher said.

Maher was recognized as a figure in comedy who embraced free speech and didn’t play to just one side of the aisle. The ceremony featured extensive clips, dating to his days on ABC with Politically Incorrect, as well as his standup specials and podcasts. Throughout the ceremony, figures such as Arianna Huffington, Jay Leno and Woody Harrelson paid tribute, while Jerry Seinfeld spoke from Las Vegas. John Mellencamp closed the show with a performance.

Louis C.K., facing the furor of sexual misconduct allegations, said Maher, “He offered to help me when no one else would.”

Whitney Cummings offered some of the most biting humor about Trump during the evening. “I actually heard Trump may come tonight but he couldn’t make it. He got caught in sex traffic.” In an audience that included a handful of Trump administration figures like Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the quip got some ooohs, along with laughs.

Maher also called out the left, noting recent efforts to censor Twain’s Huckleberry Finn because it uses racist language, even though it is 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.

Maher praised his audience, saying, “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. And I’m sorry, I think that makes them better. Why? Because I don’t ask what will please the audience. I ask what is true and they are OK with that.”

“They are a unique group of people who do not demand to be pandered to, and in fact, want me not to do that, and it has been the honor of a lifetime to try and lead a backlash to groupthink.”