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Conan O’Brien is standing by his decision to accept his Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center following Trump’s takeover. In a Friday episode of his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the comedian shared he considered not going — but decided it was important to do so since the award came from the “old regime.”
“Obviously for the last couple of months with the new administration, there’s been some controversial stuff going on with the Kennedy Center,” he said of the event. “There was a question of ‘Should I go? Should I not go?’ And I felt like it was important to show up.”
“We were brought in under the old regime… They’re no longer there but we should honor their decision,” he added. “It was really lovely because the young people working at the Kennedy Center for years were delighted that we came. They don’t know what their future is.”
At the event, O’Brien was celebrated by his peers (including a bread roll-throwing David Letterman, Sarah Silverman, and John Mulaney) and honored for his comedy work in an award given by the “old regime,” before Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s chairman and took over the position himself.
O’Brien said he spoke to a lot of the workers at the venue and felt empathy about their situation given the Trump takeover. Comedians such as Will Ferrell and Mulaney took the stage to celebrate O’Brien and aim at Trump, with Ferrell joking, “I’m supposed to be shutting down the Department of Education” and Silverman saying, “I miss the days when you were America’s only orange asshole,” per Variety.
This year’s Mark Twain Prize event marked the first national event since Trump. It’s set to air on Netflix sometime this year. Since early February, artists and performers including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Issa Rae pulled out of scheduled appearances at the prestigious venue in the wake of Trump‘s cultural power grab.
