Bill Maher says he is dining with President Trump again next week after a friendly text invite, and he called out leftists who would refuse a White House conversation.
Liberal comedian Bill Maher told listeners on his "Club Random" podcast that President Donald Trump invited him back for another private dinner, and that the exchange by text was gracious. Fox News Digital reported the Monday revelation, noting neither the White House nor Maher’s representatives responded to requests for comment.
Maher framed the invite as proof that talking across the divide still matters. He said plenty of people on the far left would slam the door on the same chance.
"I'm having dinner with him again next week," Maher said on the podcast.
"After the first dinner, I went back to doing what I do... But then, like, he just, out of the blue, let's have dinner again. And I was like, great. And he was really nice."
He described the text back-and-forth in blunt terms. Trump, in Maher’s telling, offered not to knock him the way he had before. Maher answered that a president can say what he wants.
"Like, I promise I won't say bad things about you like I did the last time.' And I texted back, and I said, 'You know what, you're the president of the United States. Say whatever the f--- you want. I'm just glad we're talking.' It's like being called a 'hockey puck' by Don Rickles. It's just what he does. It's how he talks."
That first sit-down came after mutual friend Kid Rock helped arrange a meeting. It took place at the White House after more than a decade of public sparring. On a tour during that visit, the 2020 election came up. Maher has said Trump did not blow up when the comedian noted Trump’s rare admission that he had lost.
Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel joined Maher on the latest podcast episode. Emanuel previously represented Trump during "The Apprentice" years and is also Larry David’s agent. He told Maher he had spoken with the president that same Monday. Both men agreed it is better to talk with people they disagree with than to freeze them out.
Maher did not hide his contempt for the purity tests that treat a private dinner as betrayal. He said the chance to speak freely with a sitting president, in a small group, is something too many on his own side would waste.
"It blows my mind that there are people in this world and lots of them on the far left who just would turn this opportunity down, a private dinner in the White House with the president, just a few people, say whatever you want."
"I've heard people say, 'Well, I don't like the war.' Tell him! You can tell them, and I will," he added.
He tied the refusal instinct to a larger Democratic problem. Maher, who has said he voted for Clinton and Obama, claimed he never felt he had to walk on eggshells with Trump the way he would have with those earlier Democratic presidents. He called that comfort "emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days."
The same party that lectures voters about norms often struggles to police its own ranks, a pattern familiar to readers watching Democrats turn on Fetterman after internal fights spill into public view.
Maher’s earlier White House meal already set off a liberal backlash. Larry David lambasted him for it. David’s satirical comparison of a Trump dinner to dining with Hitler drew a hard response from Maher on a separate Club Random appearance.
Breitbart reported Maher’s rebuttal: the Hitler card insults six million dead Jews and collapses the argument the moment it is played. Maher stressed he has been among Trump’s sharpest and earliest critics, and that one dinner did not revise that record. He also said he remains willing to talk with both Trump and David.
On the newer podcast, Maher zeroed in on the double standard. David’s own agent, Emanuel, had just spoken with the president. Maher called the selective outrage hypocrisy.
"It's so interesting to me that Larry David, like, I'm the devil because I talk to him, but his own agent just talked to him on Monday... You must recognize the hypocrisy there. Somehow, when it's his own agent doing the exact same thing, this is, then we don't play the Hitler card."
Democratic leaders often go quiet when their side’s contradictions surface, much as Schumer and Jeffries stayed quiet while a New York Democrat publicly challenged another party figure.
After the original White House meal, Maher described a Trump who listened, laughed at himself, and stayed even-tempered under criticism. He has said the traits he disliked most were absent that night. In a monologue covered by the New York Post, Maher noted Trump signed a list of old insults with good humor, handed over MAGA hats as gifts, and engaged without the anger many expected.
"Look, I get it. It doesn't matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I'm just taking as a positive that this person exists. Because everything I've ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent at least on this night with this guy."
"I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him," Maher said. He added that he would never have felt as comfortable talking with Clinton or Obama the same way, and left listeners to "make of it what you will."
Trump has still needled Maher in public. In recent months the president repeatedly hit the comedian’s "low ratings" on Truth Social. That did not stop the new invitation. Maher also received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize earlier this year while Trump serves as the center’s chairman. Reports said the White House had tried to block the award; the prize went through anyway.
Trump continues to dominate the national conversation on multiple fronts, from personnel signals such as settling on JD Vance as a 2028 pick to foreign-policy pressure plays that keep rivals off balance.
Maher’s point was simple. A private dinner does not revise a president’s record on the world stage. It does show a willingness to sit across the table. He said he is "just glad we’re talking." In his view, the people who treat that as betrayal are the ones who keep losing the room.
Voters watching Trump press Democrats in real time, including episodes where Trump presses Talarico over gaps on the trail, already know the contrast. One side shows up ready to argue. The other side often prefers the boycott.
Open conversation with the president of the United States is not a loyalty oath. Treating it like one is why so many Democrats keep talking past the country they want to lead.