A Mark Twain Prize Where the Joke Is on Donald Trump
The Kennedy Center was ready for a night of comedy yesterday. But before guests even reached the red carpet, the building presented a setup of its own. A large tarp was still hanging across the building’s facade, blocking any view of the spot where Donald Trump’s name had been added and then taken away following a court order. Inside, the punch lines practically wrote themselves. Officially, comedians had gathered there to pay tribute to this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the talk-show host Bill Maher. Onstage, comic after comic—including Jay Leno, Louis C.K., and Whitney Cummings—took potshots at the president while celebrating Maher’s contrarian posture and decades-long joy at sparing neither the left nor the right. “Finally, an award for my dear friend, ironically at the Trump Kennedy Center,” the actor Woody Harrelson told the audience. “No, oh right—we fixed that.” Cummings imagined a Kennedy Center transformed by Trump, joking that under his influence, the Washington arts complex’s fall lineup would include a “three-month run of white Hamilton.” Another joke—that …
