Bill Maher is ready for another dinner with President Donald Trump, even after their first White House encounter ended with the president publicly insulting his guest.
The comedian disclosed that Trump had contacted him again about getting together, this time offering something he hadn’t delivered after their previous meeting: a promise to keep the insults to himself.
Maher recounted the surprising exchange while chatting with Hollywood executive Ari Emanuel on his “Club Random” podcast.
“It’s so weird, you know, after the first dinner, he was — I went back to doing what I do and you know, for people who —” Maher began.
SHOCKING: Bill Maher reveals President Trump just INVITED him back for a second White House dinner.
“[President Trump] just, out of the blue, ‘let's have dinner again.’ I was like, ‘great.’ And he was, like, really nice. Like, ‘I promise I won't say bad things about you like I… pic.twitter.com/ZOuE7qSW0r
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) October 12, 2026
Emanuel jumped in before his guest could finish, bringing up the president’s less-than-flattering reaction to their earlier meeting.
“He probably screamed at you!” Emanuel interjected. “He said you’re low rate —”
“Of course,” Maher responded with a laugh. “It never stops! He tried to stop me from getting the Mark Twain award … but then he just — out of the blue — let’s have dinner again. You know, I said, ‘great.’ And he was really nice, like, ‘I promise I won’t say bad things about you like I did the last time.’”
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“And I texted back and I said, ‘You know what? You’re the president of the United States, say whatever the f*ck you want,’” Maher recalled.
“I’m just glad we’re talking. It’s like being called a hockey puck by Don Rickles. It’s just what he does. It’s how he talks,” he added.
The renewed invitation comes with some baggage from Maher’s first visit, which provoked criticism from people who ordinarily consider themselves politically aligned with the outspoken comedian.
To those detractors, agreeing to a friendly conversation with Trump was itself objectionable. They viewed Maher’s participation as an unnecessary boost to the president’s public standing.
Larry David turned his objections into a parody of Maher’s own account of the dinner, writing as though the HBO host were describing a meeting with Adolf Hitler. The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator titled the satirical essay “My Dinner with Adolf.”
The criticism didn’t change Maher’s account of what happened behind closed doors. He described a president who seemed noticeably different from the combative personality familiar to television audiences.
“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House,” Maher remarked afterward. “A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f*cked up. It’s just not as f*cked up as I thought it was.”
His latest account of Trump arrives alongside criticism of Democrats, whom Maher believes are risking their political future even if they prevail in November’s congressional elections.
On “The Chris Cuomo Project,” the comedian rejected the notion that a Republican defeat would necessarily validate the opposition party’s message.
Maher wasn’t willing to credit Democrats with winning over the electorate simply because voters might punish Republicans in November. Chris Cuomo put that distinction to him during their discussion of a potential midterm defeat for Trump and his party.
“Absolutely not,” Maher answered.
Looking beyond November, he worried that progressive activists would mistake a rejection of Trump for approval of policies he considers too extreme to win a presidential race in 2028.
“They have not renounced their crazy at all. In fact, they’re going full steam ahead,” he warned.
The political direction troubling Maher included proposals involving government control of private enterprise, which he considered evidence of the party’s movement toward communism.
“When you talk about taking over the means of production and taking over all the private industries, that’s communism, folks. You can look it up,” Maher maintained.
In his view, the party’s more moderate figures recognize the danger but hesitate to challenge a politically energized progressive movement.
The comedian also blamed partisan hostility for creating an environment where reversing an opponent’s decisions can become more important than determining whether those decisions were sensible.
“When hate takes over, people stop listening to any of the logic,” he observed.
Another Democrat drawing Maher’s criticism was New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose remarks commemorating the October 7 Hamas attack prompted a sharp response from the HBO host.
The third anniversary brought a lengthy message from Mamdani that addressed both the victims of the Hamas attack and Palestinians suffering in Gaza.
Bill Maher SLAPS AROUND Radical NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “It was the third anniversary of the horrible attack in Israel on October 7, three years ago. And Mayor Mamdani, not all that sympathetic to this stuff, but he did make some nice remarks about it. He's against it. But then… pic.twitter.com/ywn7iMTAbJ
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) October 10, 2026
He expressed sympathy for grieving New Yorkers while directing accusations of serious wrongdoing toward Israel.
Among his allegations were claims of an “ongoing genocide in Gaza” and accusations that American support for Israel helped finance war crimes.
“Mayor Mamdani, not all that sympathetic to this stuff, but he did make some nice remarks about it,” Maher conceded.
“But then he pivoted right to, ‘but Israel made them do it,’” the comedian continued, offering his interpretation of Mamdani’s statement.
Maher also found material for a joke in Mamdani’s earlier ventures outside politics. The mayor once performed under the rap identities Young Cardamom and Mr. Cardamom, but the comedian had a decidedly less flattering name in mind.
“You know, he used to be a rapper. His rap name was ‘Tone Deaf,’” Maher quipped.