Comedian Bill Maher revealed what surprised him most about his much-hullabalooed dinner with President Trump — as he joked that his takeaways may cause “liberal sphincters” to tighten.
At the outset of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, the eponymous host delivered a lengthy monologue about his meeting with the commander in chief that left him unexpectedly charmed.
“Everything I’ve not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent. At least on this night, with this guy,” Maher, 69, said, appearing somewhat shocked by his own conclusions.
“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,” the talk show host said, adding, “Make of it what you will.”
Admitting that he went in with guns blazing, Maher described how he printed out a list of insults that Trump had hurled his way over the years, including barbs such as “sleaze-bag” and “low-life dummy” — to see if the president would autograph the digs.
“I brought this to the White House because I wanted him to sign it, which he did … with good humor,” Maher said, holding up the Trump-signed sheet of paper as the audience broke out into applause.
“And I know, that as I say that, millions of liberal sphincters just tightened,” Maher quipped.
The comedian also revealed that President Trump gifted him several MAGA hats, which are stored in the same room where former President Bill Clinton allegedly had trysts with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
However, he said he felt no pressure to “go MAGA.”
The HBO host proceeded to deliver staggeringly positive reviews of Trump, harping on the graciousness the president showed behind closed doors, even in the face of challenging and sometimes abrasive critiques.
“I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected. People that don’t look you in the eye. People that 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,” Maher said.
“Mostly he steered the conversation to ‘what do you think about this?’ I know. Your mind is blown. So is mine,” Maher said to widespread audience laughter and a round of applause.
Maher also recounted that at one point during their dinner, the president asked him his thoughts on the Iran nuclear situation.
The liberal host confessed he directed a pointed criticism at Trump for eliminating the Obama nuclear deal with the Middle Eastern nation.
“He didn’t get mad or call me a left-wing lunatic. He took it in,” Maher said.
In a moment surprising to both Maher and the audience, Trump used the word “lost” in relation to the 2020 presidential election.
“And 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.
The comedian also raved about several character traits he witnessed in the “private Trump” that are supposedly absent from the president’s larger-than-life public persona.
“Just for starters, he laughs,” Maher stated in disbelief. “I’d never seen him laugh in public. But he does — including at himself — and it’s not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of forty years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it.”
In one memorable exchange, Maher recounted that Trump, showing off the portraits of the Oval Office, said, “The best thing about [President Ronald Reagan] was his hair.”
Maher said Trump chuckled when reminded that taking down the Soviet Union and Communism was another fine Reagan accomplishment.
The host said that the most “surreal” part of the whole situation was when he returned home, flipped on the television, and saw Trump back to playing the role of his bombastic public persona at a news conference.
“Who’s that guy?,” Maher joked, adding, “And why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?
“A crazy person does not 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 said in summation.
Other dinner attendees were head of the UFC Dana White and rockstar turned Trump-booster Kid Rock, who organized the meeting.
