Bill Maher Reacts to Trump Criticism, Lists Successes, Failures

Nearly three weeks after Donald Trump spent part of his Valentine’s Day lashing out at Bill Maher, claiming that he wasted his time having dinner with the Real Time host last year, Maher offered a detailed rebuttal, complete with clips, of just where he stands with the president, revealing that he has both criticized and praised him.

At the end of his “New Rules” segment, Maher said that despite what the president wrote on Truth Social, he doesn’t “suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Instead, the comedian says, the president, who has continued to post to social media about Maher as recently as Friday amid an ongoing conflict with Iran, has “Bill Maher Derangement Syndrome.”

First Maher corrected some facts from Trump’s Truth Social post about the dinner, noting he didn’t ask for it, he was invited by their mutual friend, Kid Rock, on his podcast, and that he “had a drink before dinner and then a couple more during.”

“I was having a good time,” he said. “So were you, Don, because we were talking like real humans, not like that crazy act you put on in public, 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. I understand that feeling.”

He went on to explain that shortly after the dinner Trump texted him “complaining I was still part of the lunatic left” and insisting that he should have “won a Nobel Prize for ending wars.”

Maher said he replied with, “Yeah, and I should have won 20 Emmys.”

“We argued for a while, and [Trump] ended by saying, ‘Bill, you know what? Don’t change. I wouldn’t know what to do with you if you did OK.’ 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 to bring 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. Thank you. I’ll be by with the new one.”

He then went through what he felt Trump should get credit for, showing clips of when he’s supported those initiatives on his show.

First, Maher said “despite all the hate I got from my side,” I “never threw [Trump] under the bus.”

“You say no mention of the perfect border,” Maher added. “The border is a win. You mentioned the mass removal of stone cold criminals. This is what got Trump elected. We’re going to get the gangs out.”

He went on to say that he supported Trump bombing the nuclear facility in Iran over the summer and didn’t “hate” the U.S. military operation removing Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela earlier this year.

And he listed a number of other Trump initiatives that he supported including ones related to animal rights, marijuana, the White House ballroom, the “golden dome missile shield” and that Trump “wasn’t wrong” about making NATO members pay “their fair share.”

He added, “About the Nick Fuentes Jew-hating wing of the Republican Party, [cutting to a clip of an earlier episode] Trump is the one who said, and I give him credit for this, he said, ‘We don’t want you.’”

And Maher showed a clip of him admitting he was wrong when he said he thought by July 4 “the economy would be in the shitter.”

“See, that’s the difference between you and me, Don, I can admit when I’m wrong and I can be honest,” Maher said as he started to share some tough love with Trump. “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. … I always want the American president to succeed, and I do give credit when you have, but there’s lots of stuff you do that is not my idea of success, and I have every right to say so in a democracy.”

He went on to list what he thought were Trump’s failures including the current manifestation of ICE: “Yeah, I’m glad you got rid of stone cold criminals, but no one wanted the sadism and stupidity that went along with it.”

Elon Musk’s DOGE, Maher added was “a complete disaster. People died for no reason, and it cut no government waste.”

Other Trump positions Maher opposed included the president’s stance on coal “not beautiful or clean,” “taking the side of autocrats instead of democratic allies around the world” and hating “Canada and wind.”

“Criminalizing dissent is wrong, and so is the juvenile trolling and suing people into silence,” he added.

“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.”

In his initial Truth Social post on Feb. 14, Trump said, taking issue with some of Maher’s criticism the night before, “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. He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be. He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a ‘Vodka Tonic.’ He said to me, ‘I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared.’ In one respect, it was somewhat endearing! Anyway, we had a great dinner, it was quick, easy, and he seemed to be a nice guy and, for his first show after our dinner, he was very respectful about our meeting — But with everything I have done in bringing our Country back from ‘OBLIVION,’ why wouldn’t he be?”

Then Trump objected to Maher’s Real Time for “devolv[ing] into the same old story — Very boring, ANTI TRUMP.”

Of Maher, Trump said, comparing him to late-night hosts that he’d criticized, “he is no different than Kimmel, Fallon, or Colbert.”

Maher briefly addressed Trump’s comments on his Feb. 20 show before promising a more detailed response when he returned from a one-week break on March 6.

“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 on Feb. 20. “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.”

Maher spoke about his dinner with Trump, which happened in the spring of 2025 on the April 11, 2025 episode of Real Time, saying that during their meeting, the president was “gracious and measured,” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.”

“The guy I met is not the person who the night before the dinner shit tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this was a bad idea and what a deranged asshole I was,” Maher said. “I read it and thought, ‘Oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house.’ But when I got there, that guy wasn’t living there.”

Maher’s willingness to have dinner with Trump sparked backlash from some circles, with Larry David even penning a satirical essay for The New York Times, mocking Maher’s visit to the White House, titled “My Dinner With Adolf.”

Near the end of the year, Maher said David “​​certainly is not really my friend anymore,” indicating that they haven’t spoken recently.