Bill Maher talks comedy, atheism and his dinner with Trump : NPR’s Newsmakers : NPR

Bill Maher received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor this summer. He accepted it onstage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which President Trump attempted to rebrand as the Trump-Kennedy Center before a judge forced his administration to remove his name from the building’s facade by June 12.

The honor was received by a comedian who has endured on nighttime television for 33 years, most recently on the HBO program Real Time with Bill Maher. 

“Thirty-three years,” Maher said on NPR’s video podcast Newsmakers. “You know, if it ended tomorrow, I think we can say it did not come out to be a failure.” He joked that he has lasted so long thanks to “the best pot” and the “best tequila.”

He later clarified that he limits his drinking and tries to eat well. But the part about pot was true.

When it comes to his TV hosting work, Maher added that he’s not acting.

“Ask anybody who knows me. I’m exactly the same person,” he said.

The Kennedy Center presents the award annually to “individuals who have had an impact on American society” — similar to that of the writer Samuel Clemens, who under the pen name Mark Twain was “a fearless observer of society,” both in his books and onstage. The ceremony will be released as a Netflix special on July 21.

Maher has sometimes infuriated critics, whose attacks have angered him in turn. He dismayed many on the political left by meeting the president for dinner at the White House early in his second term. In an on-air essay describing the experience, Maher insisted that it was valuable to talk with people across the spectrum. He said he learned that Trump was not a “crazy person,” but only someone who “plays a crazy person on TV.”

In his Newsmakers interview, which was filmed inside a media room that’s part of Maher’s home in Los Angeles, the comedian said Trump was “more self-aware than he lets on in public.” But when asked by NPR’s Steve Inskeep why, if he’s not crazy, Trump would act that way on TV, Maher clarified, “Well, he is a crazy person in the extent that he definitely has a form of Tourette syndrome. He just blurts out whatever is on his mind.”