Bill Maher has fired back in the latest bout of his on-again, off-again feud with President Donald Trump.
The 70-year-old comedian used his Friday show to respond to Trump’s baffling, 1,000-word Truth Social tantrum after their White House dinner.
“Eating with Trump is like dating Taylor Swift. It’s a lot of laughs at the time, but later on they’re tearing you a new a–hole,” he said on Real Time With Bill Maher. “Look, I don’t want it to be this way. The whole point of having these dinners was [to] talk, disagree, but listen—which he does in person—but don’t hate each other.”
Maher and Trump had dinner at the White House for the second time on Oct. 15, joined by MAGA rockstar Kid Rock and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
Armed with a printout of Trump’s Truth Social meltdown, Maher proceeded to read through the president’s 1,323-word rant to refute and mock several of its points.
“It begins, ‘Let’s talk about the complete and total loser, Bill Maher.’ You got me there. Okay. I’ll own that one,” he said, drawing laughs from the audience.
Maher clapped back at Trump’s claim that he didn’t support the war on Iran by playing previous clips of himself expressing approval for what he described as “a necessary thing to at least try.”
The comedian also denied ever calling Trump “incessantly” and inviting himself to the White House, in response to the president’s claim that he got ten calls from Chuck Labella, the co-creator of Maher’s podcast.
“I’ve never called you. You call me. I’d be afraid to call you—you’re the president! I think you’re too busy. Well, plainly not,” he said. “‘He invited himself to the White House.’ As if you could do that.”
Maher then poked fun at Trump’s accusations that he was a “major pothead” who drunkenly walked through the White House.
“I guess the cat’s out of the bag now, huh? Boy, that explains a lot. I thought I was just happy,” he said. “‘He looked like hell this time. Bill had alcohol in his hand’—that you gave me—‘as he walked through the White House.’”
Maher could not contain his laughter as Trump’s post took an unexpected twist.
“Overall, I thought it was a good meeting,” Trump wrote. “It didn’t last four hours, it lasted two hours, maybe less, and everybody was happy. We have the timestamps. I learned nothing, and felt it was a waste of time. After the first dinner, Bill Maher was friendly, I guess; everyone walked away pleased.”
The latest salvo of Maher and Trump’s long-running feud appears to have been set off by former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s appearance on the HBO show.
“Karoline Leavitt was GREAT on the show, but she started with a biased, dumb SLEAZEBAG, asking questions,” the president said. “She defended me, and herself, so well, but couldn’t be comfortable going against Lie after Lie.”
“I never watched your show much, but I will never watch it again, because it is nothing more than FAKE NEWS that America, and the World, is unfortunately subjected to,” he told Maher.
