Decades-long critic of Donald Trump, Bill Maher, offered a rare show of admiration for the president days before his White House Dinner, touting him as “one of the most effective politicians.”
On Sunday’s episode of Maher’s Club Random podcast, which was taped before his White House visit, the comedian praised Trump’s political prowess to NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo.
“I mean Trump is one of the most effective politicians, whatever you think of the policy and him as a person,” he said. ”Just him as a politician, just understanding that [you should] always lean in to being more who you are.”
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“The people are not savvy about issues, but they smell a phony a mile away and that kind of s---, nobody else does it,” he added.
Maher praised Trump for claiming that he threatened Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar before Biden withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, the president telling Sean Hannity that he “sent him a picture of his house.”
“When he did that thing where the guy came in from the Taliban and he said, ‘This is an aerial picture of your house. If during our withdrawal one American is hurt, just know I know where you live,‘” Maher said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, can we just play the music now? Because I don’t care it’s Donald Trump and he’s the worst person ever, blah, blah, blah – I f---ing love that!,” he said.
He also referenced another Trump moment that stuck out to him as a fellow New Yorker.
“One time they were doing something, something was going on and he said, ‘You know what? When you come after New York, you gotta go through me.’ It’s like, oh—hometown boy,” he remarked.
Maher said he would talk more in depth about his experience at the White House on the April 11 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher.
The White House visit was organized by Trump supporter and musician Kid Rock, whom Trump said he was doing a “favor” for.
In a Truth Social post, Trump criticized Maher as “a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything, or anyone, TRUMP,” likening him to the Democrats who “wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh and, certainly, they wouldn’t be in any way ‘nice’” during his address to the Joint Session of Congress.
“Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be proven wrong? In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend,” he said.
Maher, on his part, praised Trump for having “alpha” moments that any Democratic politician has yet to demonstrate.
“He has those moments that no other politician has,” Maher said. “And the Democrats have to find that guy.”
“You got to appeal to people at a sort of post-civilization stage, where we’re kind of at, at a primal level, you just do” he added. “And Trump does it better than anybody.”
On the March 28 episode of The Chris Cuomo Project podcast, Maher compared his then upcoming dinner with Trump to the “Nixon to China thing,” referencing Nixon’s 1972 visit to China which ended the 25 years of diplomatic isolation between the two nations.
“If they expect me to be leaving in a MAGA hat, they’re gonna be very disappointed, but I know they don’t,” he said. “And I think it’s gonna be, you know, look, it probably will accomplish very little, but you gotta try, man. You gotta try.”
Kid Rock, who had been on Maher’s podcast before, told Varney & Co. Wednesday that he was “just trying to break bread with some of our biggest critics” at the White House dinner and “bring a little bit of civility back to this country for reasonable people.”
“You know we broke bread and talked about things we had in common and it could not have been more cordial, more nice,” he said. “I think everyone was so pleasantly surprised.”
