Something pretty wild happened on HBO Friday night: Bill Maher, of all people, offered a surprisingly human take on President Trump. Yes, that Bill Maher—the longtime liberal firebrand who’s made a career out of roasting Trump and everything even remotely red-hatted—finally sat down with the former president for dinner at the White House. And what he revealed afterward was nothing short of shocking (at least to the MSNBC crowd).
“I’m not going MAGA,” Maher made sure to clarify, but the tone of his comments suggested that he walked away from the dinner with a whole new perspective. According to Maher, the Trump he met was not the media-manufactured cartoon villain he expected. Instead, he found a president who was “gracious,” “funny,” and even—get this—self-aware.
“The guy I met is not the guy who the night before the dinner s***-Tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how this dinner was a bad idea and what a deranged a****** I was,” Maher said. But rather than meeting a hostile egomaniac, Maher found Trump laughing, cracking jokes—including at himself—and even signing a list of insults he’d hurled at Maher over the years, like “low-life” and “his show is dead.”
But the real kicker came when Trump, during a conversation presumably about the 2020 election, used the word “lost.” Maher said, “I never thought I’d hear you say that.” Trump didn’t flinch. No anger, no defensiveness. Just straight talk—something Maher admitted threw him off.
Bill Maher's full 'book report' on his meeting with Trump at the White House:
"As you know, 12 days ago I had dinner with President Trump, a dinner that was set up by my friend Kid Rock. Because we share a belief: That there's gotta be something better than hurling insults from… pic.twitter.com/GPZW94KhnD— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) April 12, 2025
Maher also acknowledged areas of agreement with the president. He praised Trump’s willingness to say that DEI initiatives have “gone too far,” backed him on supporting legislation against trans athletes in women’s sports, and didn’t hide his alignment with Trump’s strong pro-Israel stance. In Maher’s own words, these positions show why “the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”
Now, Maher’s not suddenly donning a red cap, but it’s clear this wasn’t the interaction he—or his audience—was expecting. Greg Gutfeld has said it for years: Trump comes across completely differently when you meet him face-to-face. Bill Maher just proved that point in front of a national audience.
Maybe the media-created caricature isn’t the real deal. Maybe, just maybe, if more critics actually talked to Trump instead of yelling about him, we’d all be in a better place. Just ask Bill.
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