President Donald Trump lashed out at comedian Bill Maher on Sunday via Truth Social, publishing an expansive screed that targeted the HBO host following a television segment discussing the administration’s approval ratings and second-term policies.
Sunday, he took to Truth Social to address the people. Let’s talk about this COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, Bill Maher,
the president wrote at the top of his longest post ever. A fireside chat it was not. The online attack, which exceeded 1,300 words, was prompted by the Friday episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” a mainstay on HBO since 2003. During the broadcast, Maher categorized Trump as a “lame duck” president burdened by low approval numbers while speaking alongside former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump, 80, responded by labeling the 70-year-old comedian a “biased, dumb SLEAZEBAG” and claiming his program suffers from minimal viewership.
White House Dinners and Late-Night Divergence
Maher’s relationship with the president has set him apart from other late-night television hosts, many of whom have faced direct pressure from the administration. While CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s show after decades on the air following pressure from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, and figures like Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers remain frequent targets of presidential grievance, Maher has charted a different course. They, too, now have targets on their backs.
Donald Trump is firing back against Bill Maher, seemingly after he shared some critics of the president on Friday’s episode of Real Time. https://t.co/i759UpsFlg
The comedian has frequently aligned with various MAGA grievances regarding the “woke” left while maintaining a fair-weather rapport with the second-term president. This dynamic included a pair of high-profile dinners at the White House, beginning with a controversial March 2025 meeting where Maher publicly described Trump as “gracious and measured.”
That outreach drew sharp rebukes from industry peers, including comedian Patton Oswalt, who criticized Maher for placating the administration, and Larry David, who satirized the initial meeting in a New York Times essay titled “My Dinner With Adolf.” On Friday’s program, Maher defended the engagements to his audience, stating, Yeah, I did it again, b—!
and adding, I know. I’m the bad guy because I go and say face-to-face to the man the things you write in articles that he’ll never read, but OK. You know what? F— you. I like these dinners.
From Irreverent Satire to Nonpartisan Crank
Later, on Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, he vented about being passed over by Hollywood.
Escalation and Personal Allegations
During the Friday broadcast, Maher detailed topics he discussed directly with the president, including deadly ICE incidents, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the performance of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom Maher argued was dragging down the administration’s standing. He concluded the segment by criticizing the White House’s recent favorable diplomatic and economic dealings with Russia—specifically referencing a diesel deal and the lifting of sanctions—remarking to his viewers, I could not have been treated better if I was Russian.
Those remarks swiftly dissolved the cordial posture Trump had previously adopted toward the host. Earlier, the president had told reporters that their initial meal was “a great dinner,” adding that Maher “likes me a lot more than people understand.”
By Sunday, however, that sentiment had vanished. In his Truth Social post, Trump escalated the dispute by alleging that Maher had toured the White House on October 15 carrying a drink while intoxicated, further describing the host as a “major POTHEAD” who “looked like hell this time.”
