Sounds like dinner went well.
Donald Trump has clearly never been a big fan of Bill Maher – and for good reason. The liberal comedian and talk show host has been a fierce critic of the president, frequently mocking him on his show Real Time with Bill Maher and calling him various not-so-flattering names like “a spectacular prick” and warning that he’s a threat to America.
In fact, Trump even filed a lawsuit against Maher back in 2013, when Maher jokingly offered $5 million to charity if Trump produced his birth certificate to prove that his mother hadn’t mated with an orangutan. (Yes, this really happened). Maher obviously claimed it was a joke, Trump tried to force Maher to pay up, and the lawsuit was dropped a few weeks later.
But needless to say, there’s not really any love lost between the two. So when Kid Rock (of all people) suggested that the two have dinner together to find some common ground and get to understand each other a little better, it’s safe to say President Trump wasn’t a big fan of the idea – though he agreed to it as a favor to Kid Rock.
Ahead of their meeting, Trump said that he wasn’t really looking forward to having dinner with Maher:
“I got a call from a very good guy, and friend of mine, Kid Rock, asking me whether or not it would be possible for me to meet, in the White House, with Bill Maher, a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything, or anyone, TRUMP.
I really didn’t like the idea much, and don’t like it much now, but thought it would be interesting. The problem is, no matter how much he likes your Favorite President, ME, he will publicly proclaim what a terrible guy I am, etc., very much like the Democrats at my recent Address to the Joint Session of Congress, where I stated, correctly, that no matter what I said or did, they wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh and, certainly, they wouldn’t be in any way “nice.”
Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be proven wrong? In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend. I look forward to meeting with Bill Maher, Kid Rock and, I believe, even the Legendary Dana White will be present. It might be fun or, it might not, but you will be the first to know!”
Well maybe it was because everybody’s expectations were so low, but it sounds like the meeting…actually went pretty well.
Maher gave a full rundown last night on his show, and admitted that he had been wrong about the president:
“The guy I met is not the person who, the night before the dinner, shit-tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea and what a deranged asshole I was. I read it and thought, ‘Oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house.’ But when I got there, that guy wasn’t living there.
Now, does Trump want respect? Of course. Who doesn’t…
Just for starters, he laughs. I’ve never seen him laugh in public. But he does, including at himself. And it’s not fake…
He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public. 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 it 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.”
Maher gave several examples of disagreeing with the president to his face, and describes Trump as being thoughtful and taking interested in what he had to say:
“I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who were much less connected. People who don’t look you in the eye, people who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing. People whose response to things you say just doesn’t track… None of that with him. And he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do YOU think about this?’
I know, your mind is blown. So is mine.”
And he also admits that he was far more relaxed talking to Trump than he would have been any of the Democrats he voted for:
“I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him. And honestly, I voted Clinton, and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it as you will. Me, I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”
Now, Maher didn’t exactly walk away from their dinner a MAGA fan. And he says that he wishes Trump behaved publicly more like he did in private. But he says that he walked away realizing that the person on TV may not be the real Trump:
“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**ked up, it’s just not as f**ked up as I thought it was.”
Of course the comedian isn’t under any illusion that him and Trump are best friends and won’t say mean things about each other anymore, but it sounds like he walked away with a newfound respect for who Trump really is – at least behind closed doors.
