President Donald Trump has awakened in a rage at late-night host Bill Maher.
The 80-year-old president logged onto Truth Social early Monday to take the host to task for reasons unknown.
Targeting Maher’s ratings, presumably for his show Real Time with Bill Maher, Trump ranted, “Bill Maher’s ratings are so low that it is hard to believe his show can continue. In many ways it’s SAD because, in actuality, I like him. Republicans should stop using him as a sounding board, however. It makes them look sooo weak and foolish!”
He turned his ire on another critic, MS NOW host Joe Scarborough, in a follow-up post. “Joe Scarborough’s show has been cut way back, and will soon be “dead!” Too predictable and boring! REALLY BAD RATINGS, just like the rest of MSNOW (MSDNC!).”
Trump has used his Truth Social account to spout off about Maher for years, calling him variously: “low ratings dummy,” “ratings challenged,” and a “Highly Overrated Lightweight.”
However, it’s unclear what set off his latest tantrum.
In fact, during the last Real Time episode, Maher criticized far-left Democrats, not Trump.
In June, after Trump called the host “low-ratings Bill Maher,” he responded by pointing to the president’s paltry approval rating, which was then around 35 percent.
“First of all, low ratings? Yours is 35 percent,” Maher said.
The comedian opened a subsequent monologue by saying that he had grown used to being targeted by Trump.
“I can always tell when the president is in a bad mood because he starts tweeting about me,” Maher said. “I feel it’s an honor always to be in his tweets, even when they’re bad, and they’re always bad.”
Later that month, he offered insight into his strange relationship with Trump as he prepared to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center.
“You know, the last 4 or 5 times he’s been public about me, it’s all back to yelling and screaming,” Maher told CNN on the red carpet.
“I’m this, I’m terrible, I’m a lunatic liberal, I’m a lunatic, I’m a lightweight, I’m a jerk. So we’re back to that. It’s OK. I would rather be still talking than the politics of ‘You don’t even exist; you’re too deplorable even to acknowledge.’”
Maher continued, “I’d rather be fighting and yelling. And that’s just his way of talking to people. You know, you just gotta have to accept it. I’d rather the channels be open, and anything is better than channels just being shut off.”
Maher also uses Real Time to praise the president. After a visit to the White House last year for a dinner brokered by their mutual friend Kid Rock, Maher said Trump was “gracious and measured,” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.”
