Bill Maher is finally returning the president’s Valentine’s Day message, and he’s not sending flowers back.
The Real Time host used his HBO platform on Friday night to respond to the president’s Truth Social rant, in which President Donald Trump tore into Maher, 70, as “very boring” and relentlessly “ANTI-TRUMP,” accusing the comedian of missing the point of one of his jokes about China and Canada.
Maher seemed amused more than anything else.
“Because now it’s our job,” he told his audience, to figure out which things the president says are jokes and which are “part of his sometimes bats--t agenda.” The comic added, with a shrug, that no one had informed him of that particular unspoken rule.
The back-and-forth comes after a controversial White House dinner between the pair last year that still appears to be fresh in 79-year-old Trump’s head nearly a year later.
In his Valentine’s Day Truth Social post, Trump dismissed the March 2025 dinner as a “waste of time,” while also fuming that Maher had taken one of his offhand remarks—about China hypothetically scrapping hockey in Canada and eliminating the Stanley Cup—too seriously.
Maher still wasn’t buying it.
“We’re going to have to workshop that one for a while,” he joked, suggesting the punchline didn’t exactly land the way Trump might think it did.
But the president didn’t stop at critiquing Maher’s sense of humor. In the same rant, Trump unleashed a string of familiar insults, branding the comedian a “jerk” with “low ratings” and even taking a swipe at his drinking habits.
“He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be,” Trump wrote. “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!”
Maher leaned in, telling viewers the outburst likely stems from the fact that he has never let up in his criticism of Trump—something he made clear he never promised to do in the first place. “I never said I would,” he noted bluntly.
Comparing the situation to a bad date, Maher quipped, “I know how women feel now—a guy buys you dinner and then expects you to put out.” He added, “I’m not that guy.”
The comedian has continued to needle Trump in recent weeks, including during his Friday night episode, where he ripped the president’s response to a Supreme Court ruling that found his use of sweeping global tariffs unlawful. Maher mocked Trump as “such a Karen” over his reaction to the decision.
Maher isn’t alone in drawing Trump’s ire. In his Valentine’s Day rant, Trump lumped Maher together with fellow late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel—two more frequent targets of the president’s attacks. Kimmel, in particular, has been in Trump’s crosshairs lately, with the president even firing off an email on Thursday to supporters urging them to push back against the comedian.
Still, Maher suggested the saga isn’t quite over. He teased that he plans to address another dig from Trump’s tirade—that he suffers from so-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome”—in more detail on an upcoming show.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
