Bill Maher opened up about his recent White House dinner with President Donald Trump.
He said Trump was surprisingly “gracious and measured.” Maher admitted, “You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured… I wasn’t high.”
He took aim at critics treating the meeting like some political summit. “I have no power. I’m a f---ing comedian, and he’s the most powerful leader in the world!” he said. “I’m not the leader of anything, except maybe a contingent of centrist-minded people.”
Maher brought a printout of Trump’s old insults. Trump signed it with “good humor.” Maher said, “And I know as I say that, millions of liberal sphincters just tightened.”
“‘Oh, my God, Bill, you gonna say something nice about him?’ What I'm gonna do is report exactly what happened,” he said. “I didn’t go MAGA. And to the president’s credit, there was no pressure to.”
He noted Trump laughed — a genuine, unexpected laugh. “He does, including at himself,” Maher said. “And it’s not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it.”
Maher was shocked by Trump’s self-awareness. He brought up the 2020 election and said Trump didn’t get angry.
“Look, I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage,” Maher told his audience. “I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists.”
He was struck by Trump’s focus and engagement. “None of that was him,” Maher said, referring to the typical distracted power-player behavior. “He mostly steered the conversation to ‘What do you think about this?’ I know, your mind is blown. So is mine.”
He cracked jokes at Trump’s expense and even contradicted him a few times. Trump had no problem with it. “I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him,” Maher said.
He even compared Trump favorably to past Democratic presidents. “I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump,” he said. “That’s just how it went down.”
Maher called the whole thing “surreal.” When he got home, he turned on 60 Minutes and saw Trump ranting on stage. “And I’m like, ‘Who’s that guy? What happened to Glinda the Good Witch?’” Maher joked.
He kept reflecting on the contrast between public and private Trump. “A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House, a person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there,” he said. “Which I know is f---ed up. It’s just not as f---ed up as I thought it was.”
Maher held up the insult sheet again and said he’ll still criticize Trump. “I don’t have a good feeling and will be critical about a lot of what he’s doing— the trade war and disappearing people, ruling by decree, threatening judges, gutting the government with glee.”
But he thinks Trump gets it now. “He said to me early on… ‘I thought maybe you’d be nice, but you hit me really hard,’” Maher recalled. “I did because I’m not going to pull my punches.”
“He understood that, and without animus,” Maher said. “That doesn’t mean he’s not going to try to do it.”
He said he left with no agenda, just “hats and a very generous amount of time.” Maher appreciated Trump’s willingness to accept him “as a possible friend, even though I’m not MAGA.”
His favorite part? They both liked hearing from people who supported the dinner. They also agreed they didn’t care for those who opposed it.
“Don’t talk, as opposed to what?” Maher asked. “Writing the same editorial for the millionth time and making 25-hour speeches into the wind.”
“He takes the piss out of everybody else, and we can hold ours?” he said, taking a swipe at Sen. Cory Booker’s marathon speech.