Bill Maher said “you can hate” him for his new perspective on President Donald Trump following their meeting at the White House, but that he’s “not a liar.”
On the latest episode of HBO’s Real Time, the host and longtime foe of the president took some time to recall his recent visit with Trump and Kid Rock. Following his trip, Maher came to the conclusion that Trump was actually “gracious and measured,” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.”
“Let me first say that to all the people who treated this like it was some kind of summit meeting, you’re ridiculous. Like I was gonna sign a treaty or something. I have no power,” Maher began. “I’m a fucking comedian and he’s the most powerful leader in the world. I’m not the leader of anything, except maybe a contingent of centrist-minded people who think there’s got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.”
The comedian then noted that he had his staff “collect and print out this list of almost 60 different insulting epithets that the president has said about me,” so that Trump could sign it, which he did “with good humor.”
The host said he’s going to “report exactly what happened” during his White House visit with the president and that “you decide what you think about it, and if that’s not enough pure Trump hate for you, I don’t give a fuck.”
After noting that the president gave him several MAGA hats, he continued, “The guy I met is not the person who the night before the dinner shit tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this was a bad idea and what a deranged asshole I was. I read it and thought, ‘Oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house.’ But when I got there, that guy wasn’t living there.”
As an example, a seemingly surprised Maher said that Trump laughs. “I’ve never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including at himself, and it’s not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it,” he said.
The host also recalled “walking through an amazing tour of the whole house, and I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but it must have been something with the 2020 election because I know he used the word lost, and I distinctly remember saying, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d hear you say that.’ He didn’t get mad. He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public.”
“I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected, people who don’t look you in the eye, people who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing, people whose responses to things you say just doesn’t track,” Maher continued. “None of that was him. And he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do you think about this?’ I know your mind is blown, so is mine.”
The comedian added, “There were so many moments when I hit him with a joke or contradicted something and no problem.”
Maher said at one point he even corrected the president when “he tweeted the night before that I was critical of all things Trump.”
“Not true. Check the tapes,” the host explained. “Moving Israel’s embassy to Jerusalem, loved it. The border did need to be controlled. I’m glad the cops are getting their morale back. DEI had gone too far. Biological men shouldn’t be playing women’s sports. Europe should pay for their defense, and of course, it makes sense that Arab countries should take in Arab refugees like the millions of Syrians who wound up in Germany when Saudi Arabia took none.”
Maher noted how he “never felt I had to walk on eggshells around” Trump during his visit, adding, “Honestly, I voted for [Bill] Clinton and [Barack] Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down, make of it what you will.”
He said the “most surreal part of the whole night” was when he got back home and turned on 60 Minutes from the night before. “There’s Trump in one of their stories, standing at a podium in a room that looked to me like one of the rooms we’d just been in, and he’s ranting, ‘Disgusting. You’re a terrible person,’ and I’m like, ‘Who’s that guy? What happened to Glinda the Good Witch? And why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?’”
Maher emphasized that he was “just reporting exactly what I saw over 2.5 hours” and learned “a crazy person doesn’t live in the White House.” However, he said, “A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is fucked up. It’s just not as fucked up as I thought it was.”
The comedian noted he’s still going to be “critical about a lot of what he’s doing,” but that his perspective on Trump did change post-visit.
“You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar,” Maher said. “Trump was gracious and measured and why he isn’t that in other settings, I don’t know and I can’t answer, and it’s not my place to answer. I’m just telling you what I saw and I wasn’t high.”
He added, “So MAGA fans, don’t worry, your boy gave me nothing, just hats and a very generous amount of time and a willingness to listen, accept me as a possible friend, even though I’m not MAGA, which was the point of the dinner.”
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