Bill Maher seemed to be trying to regain President Donald Trump’s favor by taking shots at Democrats.
The Real Time host reacted live on X to Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, where he echoed Trump’s complaint about Democrats not applauding him.
“Trump just said what I said Friday: the other side never claps for the other team, advertising to the world that the state of our nation is HOPELESSLY DIVIDED,” Maher wrote.
The post referenced a “New Rules” monologue Maher gave in his Friday episode, where he argued that State of the Union addresses should be canceled altogether.
“Neither party anymore can even clap for the other one, no matter how benign the statement,“ Maher said. He showed a 2023 clip of Republicans refusing to clap after Biden condemned political violence, noting, ”They’re politicians and they can’t even give it up for ‘shooting us is bad.’"
Maher drew immediate criticism on X for his post, in part due to his history of what viewers have seen as the comedian sucking up to the president.
In April 2025, Maher visited the White House to have dinner with Trump. Afterward, Maher praised Trump as “gracious and measured,” and argued that the president’s in-person demeanor varied greatly from his public one:
“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House,” Maher said. “A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f---ed up. It’s just not as f---ed up as I thought it was.”
Maher was criticized widely for both his glowing description of the meeting and his decision to attend it in the first place. Shortly afterward, comedian Larry David wrote a satirical piece for The New York Times comparing Maher’s dinner with Trump to a fictional 1939 radio host dining with Adolf Hitler.
Maher’s Tuesday night post comes just days after the president launched a Valentine’s Day Truth Social attack on the late-night host. Trump called their meal a “total waste of time,” and described the comedian as having been “extremely nervous” and displaying “ZERO confidence in himself.”
“Bill Maher is a highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT, and Republicans should stop using him to show how the Left is coming over our way,” Trump wrote. “Our Base, the Greatest of All Time, laughs at your weakness when you do it!”
Maher responded to Trump’s post in his following Real Time monologue. He claimed Trump was angry that Maher wouldn’t stop criticizing him just because of one nice dinner.
“I know how women feel now—a guy buys you dinner and then expects you to put out," Maher said, adding, “I’m not that guy.”
Less than 40 minutes after Maher’s post complaining about Democrats not clapping for Trump, he posted what seemed to be a criticism of... everyone.
“The maturity level of this country is… what’s below one?” Maher wrote. It’s not clear which moment in Trump’s SOTU address Maher was reacting to—or if he was even reacting to the 107-minute speech at all.
