Not long ago Bill Maher went to the White House to schmooze and dine with, yes, Donald Trump. Trump signed a list of bad names that he called Maher over the years, showed him the small room off the Oval Office which Clinton and Monica Lewinsky made famous, and even gave Maher a MAGA hat.
Overall, Maher found Trump to be a fairly congenial host, not like his public image as a horrible person. Maher says that Trump was “much more self-aware than he lets on in public,” and even admitted that he lost the 2020 election. He even solicited political advice from Maher about Iran and the bomb.
At about 7:10, Maher lists some things that Trump did that Maher agreed with (“biological men shouldn’t be playing women’s sports,” etc.) Maher didn’t pander, and Trump didn’t dominate, and even laughed (have you ever seen Trump laugh).
He concludes: “A crazy person doesn’t work in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on t.v. a lot lives there, which I know is fucked up, but it’s not as fucked up as I thought it was.” But Maher certainly lists all the bad things that Trump did and is doing. I’ll let you listen to the conclusion, which is thought-provoking. Maher concludes, “I’m just telling you what I saw, and I wasn’t high.”
A screenshot:
This is propaganda and you fell for it.
Trump has been:
He’s also a serial sexual abuser of women.
Oh, but he can’t be so bad because he was nice to Bill Maher. I wonder how much Maher got paid for this.
It’s not propaganda; it’s Maher’s impression. And I’ve criticized Trump for everything you say. Nor did I say Trump wasn’t doing bad stuff. But I do agree with Maher that Trumpm did some good stuff. If you think that everything he ever did was bad, like prohibiting trans-identified men from participating in sport, then you can’t see clearly. Witness your assertion that somebody paid Maher to have dinner with Trump and put it on television. That’s insane.
This is not only a misguided comment, but a rude one.
I had written a response to your comment in which I argued (mildly) that Maher didn’t claim that Trump “can’t be so bad.” Then I re-read PCC(e)’s post, which reminded me that Maher did say “it’s not as fucked up as I thought it was.”
So I backspaced all that I had written and started over.
As I wrote below (which I wrote before I saw your comment), if Trump is just acting at being a petty Tyrant, that may be more despicable than being that person 100% of the time. It certainly doesn’t make him less despicable than, IMO.
“Threatening Canada”
One unintended benefit of that bluster is the discovery of a beating patriotic heart in the breasts of many Canadians who spent the last ten years agreeing with our former prime minister that we’re a genocidal colonizing patriarchy where ‘‘There is no core identity, no mainstream [instead we’re] the first postnational state.’’
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canada-again.html
So at least we’ve found some kind of national identity even if it’s just “Elbows up!” and opposition to the number 51.
An unintended cost of that bluster is that Trump has stupidly and disastrously rescued the electoral fortunes of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Much of what Maher agreed about on what Trump was doing, so do I. (Sex over gender as law.) So what? I didn’t/wouldn’t vote for DJT. Mayer’s experience didn’t change anything for me, but I’m guessing there’s nothing Mayer or DJT could have done that you wouldn’t have labeled propaganda.
You might like this!
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trumps-personalist-style-in-politics
Absolutely!
“This is propaganda and you fell for it.”
Our Host did not “fall for it.” He simply reported it.
Maybe you’d like to be his (our) legal guardian or conservator.
He chose to report this. To what end? So we can act like Trump isn’t so bad because he was nice to Bill Maher? All dictators are able to act civilized when the situation calls for it. This bit with Maher isn’t thought-provoking at all. It comes off as propaganda – i.e. Trump’s approval is tanking so he thought he’d get some nice PR by being decent to a comedian with a large audience. That’s what this is.
I would rather judge Trump by his actions: sending innocent people to hideous prisons (there are multiple examples of that), sexually abusing women, etc. I could go on and on and on. I don’t care that he was able to act nice to Bill Maher for two hours.
Totally agree. Who cares if Trump acted nice to Maher. Actions always speaks louder than words. Humanity should be our only concern. And from Trump’s actions…on federal workers, punishment without due process etc. He doesn’t care. I care, We, the people must care.
The completely innocent person (I assume you are referring to Abrego Garcia) is in fact a criminal alien
There’s no evidence that he has done anything criminal.
Even if he was in the country illegally, do you really think that crime should be punished by a life sentence in a torture prison? If so, then you are sick.
Trump and his regime are sending innocent people to be tortured in foreign countries. They even admitted to a mistake here, but they won’t do anything about it.
Think about that – people are being sent to foreign prisons by the US government. They can now send innocent people there “by accident” and they can just wipe their hands of the whole thing. This is a real person who is being brutalized, by the way, not just some abstract entity.
If you don’t think this is going to be used to get rid of all sorts of people Trump simply doesn’t like, you are deluded.
I’m also not going to act like Trump is somehow okay because he was nice to Bill Maher.
All oksy except for the last sentence, which nobody espoused, least of all me. And you made the same post twice.
You’re new here, aren’t you?
“There’s no evidence that he has done anything criminal”
Abrego Garcia violated 8 U.S.C. § 1325 back in 2011.
I assume from your citing law that you consider yourself to have a certain amount of respect for the justice system.
I’d like to remind you that one of the foundational principles of same is that of due process, of which Garcia was afforded none. (And without which even citizens—like yourself?—have no recourse against the whims of a regime.)
In fact, he had a judicial order protecting him against deportation, which the administration illegally ignored (an error they even acknowledged). So I’d urge you to reconsider if his supposed committing of a crime at entry has any mitigating relevance for the illegal deportation of a later legally resident person.
What I took from Maher’s account is not that Trump isn’t so bad but that he isn’t as crazy as he pretends to be. Which is interesting.
I listened to this last night. I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Right now, I’m inclined to despise Trump at least as much as I ever did. If he’s just playing at being a hateful, ignorant tyrant when he’s on camera or social media, then I find that at least as disturbing as if that’s who he truly is. It means that, possibly, he could choose NOT to be that person in public.
Still, I found Maher’s account of his visit to the White House to be fascinating.
Me too, in contrast with Garnet above who is determined to that Trump never did anything good and that I MUST agree with him that everything Trump did was bad. Well he did some stuff that was salubrious, and Maher lists some of them.
I will not look kindly on those who say that EVERYTHING TRUMP DID WAS BAD AND I HAVE TO AGREE. That is not the case. He’s been a horrible President and may cause a recession, and I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing him after he was elected. If you want to say that he is Satan and incapable of doing a single good executive act, I know a good website in Minnesota you can go to. But this site is not the place.
I agree. Maher’s account is interesting. But it changes very little. Interesting that Trump knows that he lost the 2020 election.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump. Biden ran as a moderate. He was known historically to be a moderate. He did not govern as a moderate. He would have lost to Trump had he stayed in the race (according to the polls). Kamala was no moderate and she did lose.
Sadly, the Democrats do not seem to have learned much from 2024. 2028 may end up as AOC vs. Vance.
Possibly, Maher is mistaking Trump’s “psychopath-like” tendencies for rosier and more benevolent virtues. No doubt Trump is charismatic and socially engaging, but he is also deeply dishonest and manipulative.
Proof you ask:
Self aggrandizing idiot.
I appreciate the fact that Bill Maher can maintain friendships with people with whom he vehemently disagrees. I also like that he has controversial public figures on his show to debate them about their ideas. Maher is correct that we need to do more than simply scream at each other across an ideological divide.
So I’m not troubled by his trip to the White House to have dinner with Donald Trump. I don’t believe Maher is going to start pulling his punches when he sees things he abhors. It’s good that Maher presented what took place during his meeting with Trump and said he will let his viewers make of it what they will.
I agree with Maher that Trump isn’t crazy. In fact, he’s very clever about a lot of things. He knows how to manipulate people’s emotions to get them to support his agenda. He’s a master of the con job.
But while Trump isn’t certifiably nuts, he’s mentally unstable. He needs all this attention to make himself feel good, and that’s why he acts like a crazy person in public. He may not be crazy, but much of the time he governs like he’s crazy. It’s true that Trump’s critics make more of some of his decisions than they need to; not everything is an existential crisis. But by and large, Trump’s policies are designed to appease the most radical — and bigoted — faction of his base of supporters.
If Trump is more sensible behind the scenes, he should behave like this in public. He doesn’t always need to keep up this act. Yet this is exactly what he does, and we get governance by chaos every day. Public figures show they are reasonable when they find ways to compromise when necessary and move something forward. The Trump administration is going out of its way to inflame the president’s critics with things that make no sense, and this is bewildering.
Interestingly, Maher’s interview guest on Friday was Steve Bannon. And Bannon said that the Reps in Congress will lower taxes for the working class and increase them for top earners. Maher had difficulty believing this. But Bannon insisted that this is going to happen. We will see.
I mean the Reps are the party of the working class now. Whether they have a working class agenda, that is still unclear. Last time Trump was president, the Reps came very close to scrapping Obama care (the Affordable Care Act) – that’s definitely something that would hurt the working class.
Saw this and it’s good! Glad that the two of them got together. It’s good to hear evidence that Trump is not insane. His actions suggest otherwise. People with personality disorders sometimes can get it together to seem normal, even though they are not. Trump may not be insane, but I don’t think he’s normal. His behavior is too erratic for normal. Not only that—wait for it—he’s the President! That scares me.
There’s nothing simple to say about Trump except that he loves to be loved. In that respect he is as human as the rest of us. I’m not going to seethe in resentment this time out as I did for the entirety of his first administration. My favorite line from Maher’s book report is, “If that’s not enough pure Trump hate for you, I don’t give a fuck”.
I beg to differ. Having lived with someone with florid sociopathic tendencies, I recognise the type[1]. Wikipedia lists these symptoms:
Such folks can, when it suits them, perform a more-or-less convincing simulation of a genuine human person. They are not as human as they may seem. Accept no substitutes.
[1] IANA clinical psychologist, nor do I play one on the internet. This is just my personal take on my personal experiences.
Yes, I have known (and worked with) several people who I later recognized as exhibiting sociopathic behaviour. They could be charming when they wanted or needed to be, but that didn’t stop them from turning around the next moment and stabbing others in the back if it suited their purposes.
So Trump did some good (very few) things. Trump is a despicable human being and a criminal. Hitler did a few good things also. You don’t make a despicable person President of anything, anywhere, any time.
Excuse me, but did I say that Trump should be President? No, and I didn’t vote for him. He’s a terrible president but he’s not Hitler. To make such a comparison is ridiculous. Do you want me to say he behaves the same way as Hitler? Sorry, I won’t. I consider such comments obtuse.
But Donald Trump, despite being despicable, was indeed made the President of the United States fully according to the law of the United States. How do you explain that? Who, exactly, are you blaming for overlooking Mr. Trump’s despicability and electing him to the office? What do you propose should be done to prevent a similar mistake of electing someone unsuitable the next time?
But Leslie, “we love ‘our democracy’ when it behaves as we wish. Otherwise, fu@k the rubes that we [supposedly] care so much to help when we are in charge.”
If many of the Trump haters had the strength of their supposed convictions, they would have long ago met the Secret Service. As it is, many of them are as full of blather as the man they criticize. When Trump leaves the scene, we’ll learn it was never about Trump. JD Vance, or whomever, will then be the most dangerous man next to Hitler.
Psychopaths can be charming. This helps them to manipulate others, it is no sign of moral worth.
People who have interacted with Trump over longer stretches of time have told us what we need to know about his true character (especially valuable is the testimony from people in his first term, not chosen entirely for their loyalty to him).
Yes. “Superficial charm” is one of the 40 items on the Hare Psychopath Checklist – the DSM instrument for diagnosing psychopathy. You can look it up – Trump checks MANY boxes.
The whole forked tongue charming liar thing. Trump fits perfectly. You don’t get to where he is by being a cruel, ranting maniac all the time — you read the room and pick your audience, you flatter, dissemble, even make self deprecating jokes. It is how psychopaths exploit people so successfully.
And it is the main reason why I didn’t vote for him – that through the vomit with shaking hand I ticked the box for DEI Kamala.
Many people over the years – even non-toadies – have given a similar reportage as Maher’s visit to the W.H. It is not surprising at all.
D.A.
NYC
Darryl Silver, former producer of the Apprentice, who had extensive experience watching Trump up close, says that “Trump’s superpower is being whatever you want him to be when he is standing in front of you.” https://www.threads.net/@tvdarryl/post/DIWiu3TJ3mK. Even without that perspective, Bill Maher has had ample opportunity to observe Trump’s monstrous treatment of other people both in person and via his policies, so his observation that Trump was “gracious and measured” says more about Maher than it does about Trump.
In regards to the two-faces of Trump. Years ago, my cousin did some artisanal metalwork in Trump Tower had had some interesting things to say, about it:
“We did a lot of work for Donald Trump. He didn’t stiff us, well a little, $3,000 out of $3,000,000. I have told stories about our relationship with him as him treating us very nicely but him being strangely vulgar. I.e., he would open the doors to his office, two on both sides of office, with the rooms outside his office lined by women. Then he cursed like a truck driver. When he closed the doors he was just a regular (sort of) guy. “
My greatest worry is that Trump will give the poor, and middle class a big tax cut that offsets any price increases, as was suggested to be his plan by Bannon. If Republicans take this path, it will make it a lot easier for them to permanently mess up our democracy. I’m hoping that things get bad for most people, so that a power switch takes place at midterms.
I am sure that during dinner at the Berghof, Hitler came off as a perfectly reasonable guy.
I have gone back and forth with Maher. He has given truly vile people (ex: Ann Coulter) his platform under the guise of talking to both sides. There are plenty of honest interlocutors, why scrape the bottom of the barrel?
You are implying that Trump is as bad as Hitler? You are addressing a website run by a (secular) Jew, so I see such comparisons as way over the top.
I was not referring to their actions, but their rhetoric.
Apparently you need to be Maher’s legal guardian or conservator.
Re: Ann Coulter: Hitch was once on her show. (Should he have not gone on?) At the beginning and at length she raked him over the coals for whatever, not asking him any questions. Presently, he replied, “You should have me on more often so that you can give your opinion.”
I think that his admission that he lost the previous election should be very very bigly news on all stations. Headlines. Huuuuge headlines. Shoved into the faces of the majority of Republicans who deny it. People died bc of his lies. Many of the guards at the capitol building were injured, and others were so traumatized that they left the service. And he never once apologized.
I do accept the pronouncements from some psychologists that Trump is a narcissist. But one feature of narcissists is that when they need to they can appear normal and even agreeable. But that is only when doing so is necessary for them, such as when they want something from you.
Of course Trump was likeable and agreeable to Maher in person – classic sociopath behavior. His unhinged rants on Truth Social are who he really uis.
Maher said that he was surprised at how self-aware Trump is. It would be hard for someone with the comedic talent of Trump to not at least some of the time be exceptionally self-aware. He is aware that he is partly playing a buffoon when he called covid the “Kung Flu”. Or when with a Chinese accent he said “We want deal”. I think Maher found him quite charming. Honestly, I would imagine that a lot of authoritarian personalities could be quite charming. Their actions are what matter though. I agree with men not being in women sports and I disagree with all of the spending the Democrats do. A dinner with good vibes doesn’t do enough for me considering just how bad I think things are and how much worse I think they might get.
I’ve been trying to get my head around all of this. I can well imagine that if I had dinner with someone who I hate and who also wields tremendous power (that being Trump and a few other people), I’d be a little startled about actually getting along with them as we engage in age-old primate social banter. Like a couple monkeys sharing a meal of juicy beetle grubs. I would no doubt find myself enjoying the weird moment, and later feeling like sh*t about it.
I’m reminded of the opposing monkey tribes video in the Sunday Hili post, and of two quotes:
Darwin: “We bear the stamp of our lowly origin.”
Hitchens: “We’re half a chromosome away from a chimpanzee. And it shows.”
I’m late to this particular party, but here are my thoughts:
I started out skeptical about Maher’s takeaways. For one, his self-serving “I’m not a leader except maybe of a group of reasonable centrists” comment (paraphrased) near the beginning left me rolling my eyes. And then the positive things Maher had to say about Trump left me underwhelmed. Here are the ones I can recall:
Trump signed Maher’s insult list;
Trump laughed a couple of times;
Trump didn’t have Maher “disappeared” down the Diet Coke chute;
Trump laughed again in response to Maher’s remark about Reagan bringing down communism (“he got it”), after Trump said that the best thing about Reagan was his hair;
Trump also “got it” when Maher convinced him some people actually like d*gs;
Trump said something about having “lost” the 2020 election (Maher is unclear on this point), leading Maher to say “he’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public”; and so on. There was also a lot of Maher projecting what Trump was actually thinking, as with the orangutan matter.
It is interesting to ponder why Trump was like this with Maher (and, presumably, with other people in private) but is so unhinged in public (as Maher pointed out). As KenS wrote above, I’m not sure this split-personality-type behavior should be reassuring to anyone, even if Maher took some solace in it. Does Trump put on a different private face because he’s just putting on a show for MAGA in public? Because he can’t help himself in the bright lights? Because he has a mob boss mentality where he’s good at gathering information from others without revealing his true thoughts? Because he’s actually brilliant and playing us all for fools?
If not pleasantly surprised at the end, I did ultimately feel that Maher did a good job of reporting his impressions, even if he was possibly charmed by Trump and swayed a bit by the low behavioral bar he set.
Well Larry he is a lifelong showman, liar and SALESMAN!
His traits work well in sales (a job I was never good at. Hard for people with a conscience especially when what one is selling is – as always with Trump – a scam.)
regards,
D.A.
NYC
After seeing the whole report and some impressions of it, I am confident that 1) Maher got played by Trump. 2) Even if Maher’s intentions were good, he was misguided in this mild face washing of Trump.
Maher says that not being crazy and outrageous in private (and even being listening) is some good sign? I say that only shows Trump is a two face conman. That’s it. And yeah, of course he is charismatic, like all conmen.
About Trump doing some “good” things like recognizing sex as binary: I would question his thought process (?) on that, and his motivations. My impression is that he just grabbed the whole package of things that conservatives hate and amplified the message. For instance, I agree that transwomen are not women, but… firing teachers that call a teenage by their preferred name/pronouns? Is that petty or what? Extreme conservatives just hate the whole concept of trans with no nuance, and that is what Trump panders to.
I am a nobody, but honestly I would never have accepted the invitation of someone that doesn’t hesitate to step over everybody to reach power, that will be responsible of so many deaths by appointing an imbecile in charge of the nation’s health, or someone that thinks fallen soldiers are losers.
In the unlikely event I did accept, I would not hold any punches. You can be polite but firm, and ask him the hard questions with no room for cover. Answer to me buddy, right here, why are you destroying academia, the health institution, and why did you pardon a bunch of criminals that assaulted the Capitol? Even if my stay in the White House was cut short, that’s what I would do.
Had Trump done some good things? Yes. The list is considerable.
He has moved against racism (called DEI by PC types)
America now has a Southern border again (after the border was de facto abandoned by Biden/Harris)
Males have been kicked out of female sports (obviously a work in progress in some locales)
Universities that condoned illegal protests have been admonished (starting with Columbia)
Providing material support for terrorists is (again) grounds for deportation
Gangsters are (again) being deported
The Federal grant gravy train has been curbed
The Houthis have been attacked (Biden also attacked the Houthis)
Iran has been forced back to the negotiating table
Has Trump done some things I don’t agree with? Yes.
The sad truth is conventional politicians have failed the US. Trump is not conventional. The means that he is willing to take steps (positive and negative) a more conventional figure might not. Let me offer an easy example. Who other than Trump would be will to kick males out of female sports?
Fair points.
“Who other than Trump would be will to kick males out of female sports?”
A number of people already have. But the NCAA president has suggested that there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes in college sports, so there is a kind of ‘solution in search of a problem’ quality to Trump’s EO on the issue. Many, perhaps most liberals and Democrats are uncomfortable with biological males competing in women’s sports, but the idea that the president of the United State would have to waste time on the issue, when he could be playing golf, strikes many of us as tapping into deeper neuroses.
(A quick edit to note that starting in 2020 numerous states banned trans athletes from participating in the ‘other’ sex’s sports — at last 23 states by the time of Trump’s edict — in addition to a similar ban by the association of intercollegiate sports.) See
https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/youth/sports_participation_bans
Well…
To my horror (and I like the guy still…) Biden turned mega-genderwang on Day 1.
Unicorns and rainbows and all sorts of nonsense put in overdrive for his rule. “Teats yeeted” all over (inside joke).
He swallowed the whole trans cult immediately: probably b/c he categorized it as “The New Civil Rights” (Time Mag. 2014) and another case of LGB rights.
Trans is nothing like that but Biden’s category error was profound and disappointing.
D.A.
NYC
All it took was whispering in his vain little ears: You’ll go down in history as the most progressive president ever. Obama will be a footnote in your biography.
I’m not sure what the point of your comment was. I was responding to the question “Who other than Trump…..” and the answer was lots of people in at least 23 states before Trump took office in January 2025. You suggest that Biden was not one of them. There are millions of other people who were not, as well. That’s not the issue.
The link includes several crude lies. The word “ban” is used several times. No state has proposed to ban transgender athletes from sports participation. As for the importance of the issue… The US has high schools and in 2028 the US has the Olympics. Remember that a male actually won a Gold medal in “women’s” boxing back in 2024 in the Olympics. The trans issue is not just about schools. It is also about prisons, shelters, rape counseling services, etc.
Of course, the 10 number is deeply suspect. TRAs claim that 1% of the population is trans. Since there are roughly 500,000 intercollegiate athletes, there are (presumably) 5,000 trans athletes. So is it 10 or 5,000?
Frank, yes to all of that.
Harris would not have made those changes.
Of course she would not have talked about taking over Greenland either (personally, I’ll take banishing DEI from government contracts, lockdown at the southern border, and the elimination of men playing women’s sports over not talking about taking over Greenland).
The constant drum of “Trump is Hitler” shows an extreme lack of intelligence and maturity by those making the claim. Trump’s got major flaws, but seriously, someone is going to make that claim in the comments section of a site that posts murdered victims of the Holocaust on a daily basis?
Rational narcissists believe that whatever they believe to be true, is definitely true.
Maher has got just less than 4 years of material coming up to build on this visit. It will be interesting to see if HE thinks he’s been taken for a ride. Perhaps not high when he arrived at the WH but he may have left abit giddy.
I listened to Trump’s 3 hour interview with Rogen. It was the first time I’d ever heard the man speak or be interviewed outside of 30 second sound bites. I found it a hard work as Trump came across as verbose and egocentric. He enjoyed lengthy asides that were not quite rambling, but close as they often seemed a long way off the question or topic in hand, but to be fair, he did always tie into back the topic eventually. The hardest part was his egocentricity – he kept telling Joe that he (Trump) was brilliant, everyone gets on with him, etc. But he also came across as intelligent and informed and charismatic. My intention at the end was to listen to politicians in longer formats more often – it paints a much better picture.
“it paints a much better picture.”
One could argue that this is the precise reason that Harris’s team did not schedule her to appear on Rogan.
And before someone wants to object that Trump is not a mass-murdering tyrant: I have read estimates that abruptly terminating USAID and various health programmes may cost millions* of lives. Trump must be aware of this but he doesn’t give the slightest impression that he cares.
No, Trump is not Hitler, but he is still a horrible person who should not be whitewashed by morons like Bill Maher.
*Even if this is off by one or two orders of magnitude, it would still imply tens or hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Could someone with a conscience live with that?
I can respect that Bill Maher met with Donald Trump, and that their interaction was civil, even friendly. It’s clear they found some common ground, and that’s fine.
But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: Donald Trump hasn’t just been a bad president—he’s been a disaster. Not only is he a demagogue, he turned his back on Ukraine and our European allies. He’s eviscerating the executive branch. And now he’s entangled the U.S. in a mutually-destructive global trade war.
That we elected him—not once, but twice—reveals one of democracy’s ugliest truths: how vulnerable we are to manipulation, and how easily a misled majority can elevate a conman to power.
Sure, it would be encouraging if Trump were open to real dialogue with someone like Maher and willing to change course—but I don’t see that happening. It would also be a relief if Congress stepped up to curb some of these abuses. For now, I can only hope the Supreme Court holds firm.
“Dinner with disagreement is fine, but not dinner with evil.” – Here’s a recommendable comment by philosopher Colin McGinn: https://www.colinmcginn.net/meetings/
(To compare having dinner with Trump with having dinner with Hitler is not to assert that Trump is as evil as Hitler. Generally, an argument from analogy is based on certain similarities that needn’t amount to qualitative identities.)