Bill Maher delivered a brutal dissection of President Donald Trump on his Friday show.
In the latest salvo in the ongoing war between the 79-year-old in the White House and the late-night comedian, Maher claimed that he doesn’t suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” but that Trump suffers from “Bill Maher Derangement Syndrome.”
Maher launched into his attack by ripping apart key aspects of the Trump administration, including ICE arrests, siding with autocratic rules against Democratic allies, and the personal enrichment of President Trump and his family.
“You texted me soon after the dinner, complaining that I was still part of the ‘lunatic left’ and that you should have won a Nobel Prize for ending wars,” Maher said, revealing behind-the-scenes details of their notorious meeting in March last year.
“I texted back, ‘Yeah, and I should have won 20 Emmys.’”
Maher is the latest late-night talk show host to be targeted by Trump, who penned a bizarre essay about him on Truth Social on Valentine’s Day.
The subject of the post was a dinner at the White House on March 31, 2025, hosted by Trump—and arranged by their “mutual friend,” Kid Rock.
Maher has previously said that he thought Trump was “gracious” and “measured” and unlike his public persona, but claimed it would not dissuade him from critiquing the administration.
Revisiting the post with an almost line-by-line analysis, a furious Maher directly addressed Trump as he refuted many of the claims made about the dinner, including that he was nervous and demanded a vodka as soon as he arrived.
“I wasn’t nervous and scared, and the dinner wasn’t quick. I was there almost three hours. And it wasn’t vodka, it was a margarita,” Maher said.
“I was having a good time. So were you, Don, because we were talking like real humans, not like that crazy act you put on in public.”
In the episode before his week-long hiatus, Maher had promised to address the presidential attack when he returned today.
Perhaps in anticipation of the response, Trump fired off a barrage of posts on Truth Social on Friday morning about Maher, in between laying out his objectives for the ongoing war in Iran.
Maher pointed to all his previous instances of siding with the president, arguing that if Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, it is partially Trump’s fault.
“Don, you have to take some responsibility for that because you make people crazy,” he said,
“You do things that are racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic, and corrupt.”
Maher argued that his ongoing critiques of the Trump administration are an effort to appeal to the president’s better nature, which he saw on display at the dinner.
“As long as I think there’s even a spark of a possibility of bringing 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.”
He concluded by quoting Democratic Rep. Jon Ossoff, who said in a recent speech about the administration that “They’re the elites they pretend to hate.”
“Free advice: If the Democrats ever learn to weaponize that message, your MAGA movement is in big trouble,” Maher concluded.
