One of the most fascinating insights from Bill Maher’s recent bridge-building visit to the White House was his observation that the so-called Lewinsky room — the little room just off the Oval Office where, well, you know — is now the MAGA merch room.
Who knew?
Accordingly, President Donald Trump gave his foul-mouthed leftist guest some snazzy MAGA hats, “but,” Maher said, “he didn’t ask me to take a picture in one, which I appreciated.”
Maher began by downplaying the importance of the meeting. “You’re ridiculous,” he said of those who’d tried to turn it into The Gipper and Gorby at Reykjavik. Rather, the dinner was put together by his friend Kid Rock “because we share a belief that there’s got to be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 miles away,” he noted. “So, meet up in person. Maybe it’ll be different. Spoiler alert: It was.”
Maher then held up a sheet of paper containing a list that his staff had compiled for him — a list of nearly 60 insults that Trump had directed toward him over the years. Maher gave us a sampling: “Stupid,” “dummy,” “lowlife dummy,” “sleazebag,” “sick,” “sad,” “stone-cold crazy,” “really a dumb guy,” “fired like a dog,” “his show is dead.” … I brought this to the White House because I wanted him to sign it. Which he did … with good humor. And I know as I say that millions of liberal sphincters just tightened.“
Good stuff, to be sure, but I’m not inclined to think that Maher has insulted Trump for the last time — far from it. I mean, what would he talk about if he weren’t taking swipes at a Republican president? But to this point, Maher revealed that Trump’s notoriously thin skin is reserved strictly for people of bad will — not people of goodwill, not people whom he considers friends. And whether he likes it or not, Bill Maher is now a friend of Donald Trump.
“Just for starters,” Maher said of his host, “he laughs. I’ve never seen him laugh in public, but he does — including at himself. And it’s not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it. And I thank you for them.”
“Look, I get it,” Maher continued. “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 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 even corrected Trump’s Truth from the night before the dinner, in which he worked the refs, calling into question the wisdom of a meeting with “a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything, or anyone, TRUMP.”
“Not true,” said Maher. “Check the tapes. Moving Israel’s embassy to Jerusalem? Loved it. The border did need to be controlled. I’m glad the cops are getting their morale back. DEI had gone too far. Biological men shouldn’t be playing women’s sports. Europe should pay for their defense. And, of course, it makes sense that Arab countries should take in Arab refugees, like the million Syrians who wound up in Germany when Saudi Arabia took none. He said to me, ‘You’re right, they took none.’ I said, ‘Well, you should remind your boyfriend in Saudi Arabia of that next time you see him.’ He laughed. I never felt like 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 to Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me? I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”
Looking at the list above, it’s clear that Maher gets what the Trump-deranged Left absolutely doesn’t get: that Trump has painted them into one corner after another by staking out one commonsensical position after another while forcing his political opponents onto the wrong side of electorally disastrous 60-40, 70-30, and 80-20 issues just to spite him.
Take the most bitter and bilious leftist of all, Keith Olbermann, for example. “I’ve known Bill since 1978,” Olby seethed. “He was a shameless opportunist with no real principles then, and he remains so. This is so he can keep his HBO show.” (This from a guy whose loathsomeness has caused him to be kicked off of more shows than I can name.)
“I’m just reporting exactly what I saw over two-and-a-half hours,” said Maher. “I went into the mine, and that’s what’s down there. A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there.”
A crazy person? Well, yeah. Trump has admitted as much. Remember when he said of China’s Xi Jinping, “He respects me, and he knows I’m f***ing crazy.” Here, Trump’s volatility — real or perceived — is a geopolitical deterrent.
“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.”
“I know your mind is blown,” said Maher. “So is mine.”
