Feb. 22, 2026, 11:17 a.m. ET
After Bill Maher angered both Democrats and President Donald Trump following his dinner with the president, the comedian feels he “just can’t win.”
On the Feb. 20 episode of his HBO show “Real Time,” Maher addressed Trump’s Feb. 14 post about him on Truth Social, in which the president slammed the late-night host as a “jerk” and said it was a “waste of time” for them to have dinner together at the White House in 2025.
Maher said Trump seemed to be upset because he has continued to criticize him over the past year, even though their meeting was cordial.
“He went off on me and said the dinner we had was a waste of time − well, I didn’t think it was − and that I’m a jerk, and I’m a low-rent lightweight, and all this … because I never stopped criticizing him,” Maher said. “I never said I would! I know how women feel now: A guy buys you dinner and then expects you to put out. I’m not that guy.”
In his post, Trump claimed that Maher was “extremely nervous” and “had ZERO confidence in himself” when they met, adding that he asked for a vodka tonic “within seconds” to “soothe his nerves.” Maher said in response that he asked for a margarita, but not “immediately,” and he denied being nervous. “I had a drink before dinner, as people do,” he said.
Maher went on to observe that his decision to have dinner with Trump seems to have upset people on both sides of the political aisle. “I’m like the Democrats with an election: I just can’t win,” he quipped.
Maher’s dinner with Trump took place at the White House in early 2025 after Kid Rock, one of the president’s prominent supporters, put it together. That April, Maher said in a monologue on his HBO show that Trump was surprisingly “gracious and measured” in person. “A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House,” he concluded. “A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there.”
This drew backlash from some of Maher’s liberal viewers, who argued the comedian should not have been humanizing the president the way that he did. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David parodied Maher’s monologue by writing a satirical essay in The New York Times from the perspective of a person having dinner with Adolf Hitler in 1939 and coming away impressed.
Maher has repeatedly defended his dinner with Trump in the months since. In November, he hit back at the “childish” and “purely emotional” criticism, describing it as “so unhelpful and dumb.”
Trump’s post about the dinner came nearly a year later, on Feb. 14. The immediate inspiration appeared to be a segment on Maher’s show the night before in which the comedian mocked Trump for suggesting that China would take advantage of Canada in a potential trade deal by banning ice hockey. Maher was bewildered by this suggestion, but Trump insisted the comment was a joke.
On the Feb. 20 edition of “Real Time,” though, Maher questioned why it’s “our job to tell” when Trump is kidding and suggested there was room for improvement on the president’s ice hockey joke. Maher quipped, “I think we’re going to have to workshop that one for a while.”
