No, Netflix Didnt Cut a Trump Joke From Whitney Cummings Set at Mark Twain Prize Ceremony

A joke about President Donald Trump was cut from this year’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony, which began streaming on Netflix on Tuesday. But Netflix says you shouldn’t blame it for leaving it on the cutting room floor.

The streaming giant has long had a reputation for letting its comics tell the jokes they want to tell in their stand-up specials, even if they are not politically correct or outright offensive.

So when Whitney Cummings made a quip about the president during the taping for this year’s Twain Prize, which honored HBO late night host Bill Maher, its absence from the final product on Netflix raised eyebrows.

“I actually heard Trump may come tonight, but he couldn’t make it,” Cummings said during the taping, adding, “He got caught in sex traffic.”

The clip went viral, as Cummings noted on her Good for You podcast earlier this month — but it was not in the final product.

“The people at the venue have been amazing. They don’t want to silence anyone. It’s true that their boss is Donald Trump. They did their job,” Cummings said. “The joke was already leaked by someone that was in the audience, a journalist or something. It was already in People magazine … But then they said, ‘We need to cut it from the broadcast.’ I’m like, ‘Well, it’s already out there.’ Who cares?”

A Netflix spokesperson says that it was not responsible for the joke being cut: “While it’s our preference not to cut jokes from anyone’s set, The Kennedy Center has the contractual right to do so.”

A Kennedy Center spokesperson added that “edits to a show are always made in a collaborative way to produce the best product for broadcast,” suggesting that Netflix was involved in the process in some capacity.

Of course, it is not unusual for pre-taped specials to be cut down for space, and this may be no exception to that rule.

Either way, there’s no need to complain to Ted Sarandos for this one.

“The point is, there was a big joke that was in the news that’s not going to be in the cut of the Mark Twain Prize,” Cummings said on her podcast. “I hope you enjoy the show.”

She also added on X on Tuesday: “I was super clear that Netflix did not cut anything from my Mark Twain prize set. Netflix always supports comedy and comics. Quit spreading rumors ya weirdos.”

Updated 3:20 p.m. with comment from the Kennedy Center.