Hovering fuel costs and a conflict with Iran. Traditionally low approval rankings. A possible blue tsunami. A brand new rape allegation.
President Trump has quite a bit on his plate, and so too does the nation. Sunday, he took to Fact Social to handle the folks.
“Let’s speak about this COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, Invoice Maher,” the president wrote on the high of his longest publish ever.
A hearth chat it was not.
The 1,300-word-plus screed was triggered by Friday’s episode of “Actual Time With Invoice Maher,” a mainstay on HBO since 2003. The comic referred to Trump as a “lame duck” president with low approval rankings throughout a section together with his visitor, former White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Trump, 80, possible anticipated reward from his fellow curmudgeon Maher, 70, for the reason that males had lately dined collectively on the White Home. It was their second such date following a controversial get-together in March 2025, which Maher juiced for all it was price in an effort to face out from his fellow late-night hosts.
Maher’s chummy relationship with Trump has made him an outlier amongst his friends, a lot of whom have been within the president’s crosshairs.
CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s present after many years on the air following strain from Trump’s Federal Communications Fee chair. Trump has bitterly complained about being handled unfairly by Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers. They, too, now have targets on their backs.
Maher has averted the identical destiny by railing on Trump solely half as a lot as his late-night friends, leaning into numerous MAGA grievances concerning the “woke” left and forging a fair-weather friendship with the second-term president.
If the Maher of 2003 might see himself now, he’d possible dedicate a searing monologue to the hypocrisy. The host was as soon as positioned as an irreverent comic whose political satire was guided by his no-BS tackle Capitol Hill and American tradition. Frequent sense over social gathering fealty. Political correctness be damned.
However because the political panorama has shifted, so too has Maher’s strategy.
Now he performs the position of a staunchly nonpartisan crank on TV whereas eating with the president in particular person.
“Yeah, I did it once more, b—!” Maher mentioned to his viewers Friday. “I do know. I’m the unhealthy man as a result of I am going and say face-to-face to the person the stuff you write in articles that he’ll by no means learn, however OK. You understand what? F— you. I like these dinners.”
So courageous. So calculated.
Maher was dipping again into the eye he obtained in 2025, when he first dined with Trump and described the president as “gracious and measured.”
Their rendezvous was simply the type of factor the comic would have mercilessly lampooned if he wasn’t in reality a part of the joke. Fellow comedians similar to Patton Oswalt have criticized the HBO host for placating Trump, whereas Larry David satirized Maher’s first date with the president in a New York Instances essay titled “My Dinner With Adolf.”
The controversy was a boon for “Actual Time,” boosting its waning relevance by placing Maher again within the information and reinforcing the drained charade that his fearlessness is aware of no bounds.
This week’s public skirmish was a repeat efficiency, if not a considerably pathetic show of each males’s must agitate for consideration.
Maher informed his viewers on Friday’s episode that he spoke with the president about lethal ICE incidents, Ukraine and the way Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth was “dragging” Trump down. In closing, he assured the viewers he was no pushover by poking on the president’s current favorable dealings with Russia (a diesel deal, lifting sanctions), then saying, “I couldn’t have been handled higher if I used to be Russian.”
Given the president’s delicate psyche, Maher knew something wanting absolute reward could be perceived as an insult. As for the knock about Trump’s slumping approval numbers? A positive set off.
In Sunday’s Fact Social manifesto, Trump referred to Maher as a “biased, dumb SLEAZEBAG” whose program is affected by low rankings. The president additionally alleged that the comic was drunk and had a drink in hand as he toured the White Home on Oct. 15, and that Maher is a “main POTHEAD” who “seemed like hell this time.”
A lot for Trump’s preliminary feedback about their assembly. He had informed reporters that it was “an ideal dinner.”
“Invoice Maher, I inform you what, he likes me much more than folks perceive,” Trump mentioned. “And I really like him.”
Not in contrast to Trump, Maher additionally enjoys reward, and blames the “woke left” when he doesn’t get it.
The usually smug host appeared upset earlier this 12 months on the Golden Globes when presenter Wanda Sykes roasted him and one other nominee up for greatest efficiency in stand-up comedy on tv, Ricky Gervais.
“There’s some folks pissed off {that a} queer Black girl is up right here doing the job of two mediocre white guys,” Sykes mentioned. “… However first, I wish to give them some love.” Addressing Maher immediately, she mentioned, “You give us a lot. However I’d love rather less. Simply strive much less.” The digital camera panned to a stone-faced Maher, who appeared “butthurt” (a time period he likes utilizing to dismiss the gripes of oldsters he gripes about).
The bruised emotions didn’t cease there. Later, on Maher’s “Membership Random” podcast, he vented about being handed over by Hollywood.
“I’ve been nominated for 33 Emmys, and they’d by no means give it to me,” he informed his visitor Joel Edgerton. “I converse freely, and this woke city f— hates that. That’s OK. I’ve made my peace with that, so I understand how this goes.”
If Maher has been “soft-canceled” by the trade, as he claims, then Hollywood has a humorous method of displaying its disdain: HBO renewed “Actual Time” via 2028.
Maybe he discovered from his frenemy Trump that grievance politics sells, and it’s time to money in.