Overview
- Bill Maher told guest Ari Emanuel on his Club Random podcast that he is “having dinner with [Trump] again next week,” but the recording date is unclear and neither Maher’s team nor the White House has confirmed the meeting.
- Maher recounted a text from Trump promising to be “nicer” and quoted Trump as saying he would not “say bad things” about him, which Maher said he shrugged off by telling the president to say whatever he wants.
- The report follows Maher’s 2025 White House dinner with Trump, which Maher said he enjoyed even though Trump later publicly criticized him, and it comes after reports the White House pushed back on Maher receiving the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize.
- Maher criticized Larry David’s New York Times op-ed that compared dining with Trump to dining with Hitler, while commentators and outlets have split between defending private dialogue across divides and condemning the optics of such meetings.
- If the dinner goes forward or already occurred, expect renewed scrutiny of how private, conciliatory encounters with the president affect public accountability and how different media outlets frame those meetings.