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Bill Maher is firing back at Donald Trump after the president took a Valentine’s Day jab at him on Truth Social.
During Friday night’s episode of Real Time, the comedian addressed Trump’s recent posts criticizing him and their past dinner together — and flipped the president’s favorite insult right back around.
“Someone has to help Donald Trump understand that I don’t suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. He suffers from Bill Maher Derangement Syndrome,” Maher said. “Three weeks ago, I woke up to some things the president had written on his Truth Social media platform that somehow were not true. I don’t know how they got in there. It’s not like the president to just make things up when he’s mad.”
Maher then pushed back on Trump’s version of their meeting, particularly the claim that he had requested the dinner and nervously ordered a drink within seconds of arriving.
“But on this occasion, he did, which I forgive. But on Valentine’s Day, that hurt,” Maher said. “But just to set the record straight from what the president claimed, I didn’t ask for the dinner. Our mutual friend asked me. It’s on tape from my podcast. Also, I wasn’t nervous and scared, and the dinner wasn’t quick.”
According to Maher, the dinner actually lasted “three hours,” and the tone was far more relaxed than Trump later suggested.
“I was having a good time. So were you, Don, because we were talking like real humans, not like that crazy act you put on in public,” he added. “But I know that’s what you do. You are, if anything, a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. And so you did here listing your accomplishments and how hurt you feel that people, including me, have not recognized them enough.”
Maher also revealed that Trump texted him after the dinner and called him “part of the lunatic left.” But after the two argued “for a while,” Maher said the president eventually softened.
“That’s the normal human being I saw the night we broke bread,” Maher said. “And as long as I think there’s even a spark of a possibility of bringing that guy out more. I will not consider the dinner ‘a waste of time,’ even as I now see we’re back to name calling and that I have some new ones like, ‘highly overrated lightweight’ to add to the list you signed.”
Still, Maher made clear that his willingness to sit down with Trump doesn’t mean he’s backing off criticism.
The host challenged the president to stop doing the kinds of things that “make people crazy,” accusing him of actions that are “racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic and corrupt.”
Maher also tried to prove he doesn’t have the “dreaded TDS,” pointing to times he supported some of Trump’s policies.
“I consider myself lucky I got in to talk to you without giving you a 747 or buying your cryptocurrency or giving you my Nobel Prize,” he said, before sharing clips of himself backing Trump’s positions on Israel, NATO and marijuana.
“See, that’s the difference between you and me, Don, I can admit when I’m wrong and I can be honest,” Maher said. “In fact, I may be the last person from the lunatic left that is still an honest broker when it comes to you.”
He added: “It’s a shame you can’t take criticism, because in an alternative universe where we could have further honest conversations, I could say things to you that might be quite helpful, like, ‘Don, I’m going to level with you. I’m going to give it to you straight. Some people don’t like you.’”
Maher also took aim at Trump’s policies and allies — including ICE enforcement, Elon Musk’s DOGE and what he described as the president’s fixation on “Canada and wind.”
“It’s not derangement for me to be always calling out the election-denying obsession you have or the pardons-for-my-friends-and-punishment-for-my-enemies mode of governing or the side deals for your family that always seem to be part of everything,” he said. “We see how rich you’ve all become, but the people of West Virginia don’t seem to be feeling the winning. A Democratic senator recently said of your administration, ‘They are the elites they pretend to hate.’ Free advice, if the Democrats ever learn to weaponize that message, your MAGA movement is in big trouble.”
Maher’s response comes three weeks after Trump blasted the late-night host on Truth Social and described their dinner as a “total waste of time.”
“Sometimes in life you waste time! T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed,” Trump wrote. “He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be.”
The president went on to claim Maher was “extremely nervous” and quickly ordered a drink.
“He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a ‘Vodka Tonic,’” Trump wrote. “He said to me, ‘I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared.’ In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!”
Trump added that Maher continues to suffer from “a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS!),” writing that “there is nothing that will ever be done to cure him of this very serious disease.”
English (US)