Bill Maher says Trump is only playing role of 'crazy person' after White House dinner

Jami Ganz, New York Daily News on Apr 12, 2025

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Bill Maher capped off his usual jabs at President Donald Trump’s administration by saying the Don is only playing the role of “a crazy person,” describing him as “self-aware” and “measured” following a recent White House dinner.

During Friday’s episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the self-proclaimed centrist launched into a highly anticipated report of his White House visit late last month, set up by friend Kid Rock. He promised to not mince words about what transpired, but said the meeting was far different than what he expected.

“The guy I met is not the person who the night before the dinner tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea and what a deranged a–hole I was,” Maher said. “That guy wasn’t living there. … A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. 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 went on to say he started the meeting by asking Trump to sign “a list of almost 60 different insulting epithets” he’s said about him through the years, “which he did [sign], with good humor.” The president then took him on a tour of the White House as they openly discussed global issues, with Trump wanting to hear his honest thoughts.

After criticizing certain moves made by Trump — including parts of his plans for Gaza, nixing a nuclear deal with Iran, and questioning Barack Obama’s birth origins — the president “didn’t get mad or call me a left-wing lunatic. He took it in,” Maher recalled. He added there was never a problem when he hit Trump “with a joke or contradicted something.”

At one point, Maher said Trump referenced having “lost” the 2020 election, which he’s long claimed to have been a result of fraud.

“I distinctly remember saying, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d hear you say that.’ He didn’t get mad. He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public,” Maher said.

“Everything I’ve ever not liked about him was … absent, at least on this night, with this guy,” he added. “I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him. And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama. But I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump.”

Though Maher acknowledged “it doesn’t matter who [Trump] is at a private dinner with a comedian, it matters who he is on the world stage,” he said he took comfort knowing “this person exists.”

“Why he isn’t that [guy] in other settings, I don’t know. And I can’t answer, and it’s not my place to answer,” Maher concluded, promising viewers he “wasn’t high” during the meeting, a nod to his widely publicized love of marijuana.