President Donald Trump launched a lengthy attack on comedian Bill Maher on Sunday, calling him a “complete and total loser” in a Truth Social post and telling him not to seek another meeting after previously hosting him twice at the White House.
The 1,300-word broadside followed Maher’s discussion of his October 15 dinner with Trump during Friday’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, where he defended meeting with the president while continuing to criticize and joke about him.
Maher has faced criticism over his willingness to engage with Trump despite their longstanding political differences, but has argued that speaking directly with the president is worthwhile.
“I go and say face-to-face to the man the things you write in articles he’ll never read,” Maher said Friday on his HBO show. He also defiantly made clear that he enjoyed the experience, saying: “I like these dinners.”
Maher has also spoken positively about his personal interactions with Trump, even as he has continued to criticize the president politically. Speaking with Trump’s former press secretary Karoline Leavitt during Friday’s show, Maher said of Trump: “He looks you in the eye, he never interrupts, he never gets mad, he listens.”
Trump also praised Leavitt’s appearance on Maher’s program, saying in his Truth Social post that she had defended both herself and the president “so well,” while accusing the show of treating her unfairly.
Despite those warmer exchanges, Maher’s monologue also included a series of jokes and criticisms directed at Trump. He mocked the president’s approval ratings and recent comments about men’s physiques, while joking about his own return to the White House.
“Trump has the lowest approval rating of any midterm candidate ever,” Maher said, before joking: “Only 1 percent of the Republicans are mentioning him in their ads.”
He also said, “It’s just a little odd that Trump keeps gushing about men’s bodies, and how handsome they are, and their jawlines, and their asses, their physiques. I’m a little hurt. I was there for dinner for four hours last week, and not a peep. Nothing.”
Maher said he raised several contentious subjects during the dinner, including immigration enforcement, Afghanistan, the Supreme Court and the 2020 presidential election.
In his Sunday response, Trump sharply disputed Maher’s portrayal of both the dinner and his presidency.
“Bill: Don’t call anymore. It’s useless,” Trump wrote, calling Maher a “hopeless guy” and “a coward” who was catering to his audience.
Newsweek reached out to HBO for comment on behalf of Maher via email Sunday.
Trump also disputed Maher’s claim that their latest dinner lasted four hours, saying it lasted “two hours, maybe less.” The president nevertheless described the gathering positively, writing that he thought it was a “good meeting” and that “everybody was happy.”
The dinner also included musician Kid Rock and ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith. Trump had previously suggested that Maher liked him more privately than his public persona indicated, telling reporters after the gathering that the comedian “likes me a lot more than people understand.”
Maher, meanwhile, has argued that people who disagree with the president should engage with him rather than avoid him. Earlier this month, on Maher’s Club Random podcast, he said critics should tell Trump directly when they disagreed with his policies, adding: “He needs more people like us, not less.”
The latest clash comes months after Maher received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in June, adding another chapter to his complicated relationship with Trump.
That tentative warming appears to have reached its limits on Sunday.
Trump accused Maher of returning to his “old ways” after their meetings and criticized his comments on subjects ranging from Republican candidates and California voting to the administration’s policies toward Iran.
Despite recounting their White House meetings at length, Trump ended his post by making clear he had little interest in another one.
“You’re not transformative, you’re a Loser!” he wrote.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
