“Actual Time” host Invoice Maher revealed particulars Friday of his assembly final week with President Donald Trump on the White Home, saying Trump was extra gracious and good-humored than he anticipated.
“You may hate me for it, however I am not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured,” Maher mentioned. “And why is not that in different settings- I do not know, and I am unable to reply, and it isn’t my place to reply. I am simply telling you what I noticed, and I wasn’t excessive.”
Maher mocked those that handled the White Home go to prefer it was “some type of summit” brokered by their mutual good friend Child Rock, calling them “ridiculous.”
“I’ve no energy. I am a f—ing comic, and he is essentially the most highly effective chief on the earth!” Maher exclaimed. “I am not the chief of something, besides perhaps a contingent of centrist-minded individuals who suppose there’s obtained to be a greater means of working this nation than hating one another each minute.”
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HBO’s Invoice Maher mentioned Trump autographed a printout of insults the comic introduced alongside that the president has leveled in opposition to him over time. (Screenshot/HBO)
Maher shared a printout of the insults Trump had leveled at him over time, which Trump signed with “good humor.”
“And I do know as I say that, hundreds of thousands of liberal sphincters simply tightened. ‘Oh, my God, Invoice, you gonna say one thing good about him?’ What I am gonna do is report precisely what occurred,” Maher mentioned, including he “did not go MAGA. And to the president’s credit score, there was no stress to.”
The HBO host expressed his shock about how Trump laughs, one thing he mentioned he had by no means seen him do in public, telling his viewers, “He does, together with at himself.”
“And it isn’t faux. Consider me, as a comic of 40 years, I do know a faux chuckle after I hear it,” Maher mentioned.
Maher credited Trump for being “rather more self-aware than he lets on in public,” revealing the topic of the 2020 election got here up throughout his tour of the White Home and that he “did not get mad” how Maher introduced up Trump’s uncommon admission that he had misplaced.
“Look, I get it. It would not matter who he’s at a personal dinner with a comic. It issues who he’s on the world stage. I am simply taking as a optimistic that this individual exists. As a result of every thing I’ve ever not appreciated about him was, I swear to God, absent at the very least on this night time with this man,” Maher mentioned.
“I’ve had so many conversations with outstanding people who find themselves a lot much less linked, individuals who do not look you within the eye, folks do not actually hear as a result of they simply need to get to their subsequent factor… None of that was him, and he principally steered the dialog to ‘What do you concentrate on this?’ I do know, your thoughts is blown. So is mine.”
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Maher mentioned “I by no means felt I needed to stroll on eggshells” round President Trump. (Screenshot/HBO)
Maher mentioned there have been a number of moments the place he cracked a joke at Trump’s expense or contradicted him on numerous subjects, but it surely was “no downside” between the 2 of them.
“I by no means felt I needed to stroll on eggshells round him,” he instructed his viewers. “And truthfully, I voted for Clinton and Obama, however I’d by no means really feel snug speaking to them the best way I used to be in a position to speak with Donald Trump. That is simply the way it went down. Make of it what you’ll. Me? I really feel it is emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular nowadays.”
Maher recalled the “most surreal” a part of the complete expertise was when he returned house to observe “60 Minutes” and noticed a clip of Trump from a podium “ranting” and shouting insults.
“And I am like, ‘Who’s that man? What occurred to Glinda the Good Witch?'” Maher quipped. “‘And why cannot we get the man I met to the general public man?’ And I am not saying it is our accountability to do this. It is not. I am simply reporting precisely what I noticed over two-and-a-half hours. I went into the mine, and that is what’s down there.”
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“A loopy individual would not dwell within the White Home, an individual who performs a loopy individual on TV quite a bit lives there, which I do know is f—ed up. It is simply not as f—ed up as I believed it was, and I’ve no illusions now that I am again to work at my job, that he would possibly begin a brand new record,” Maher mentioned, holding up the printout of Trump’s insults to him. “As a result of I haven’t got a superb feeling and can be essential about plenty of what he is doing- the commerce struggle and disappearing folks, ruling by decree, threatening judges, gutting the federal government with glee.”
“However I additionally suppose he now understands I’ve a job to do, or at the very least he did on this night time, as a result of he mentioned to me early on that he’d seen our final episode, which was the Friday earlier than this dinner, and he mentioned, ‘I believed perhaps you would be good, however you hit me actually onerous.’ I did as a result of I am not going to drag my punches that presidents get to suggest a 3rd time period for themselves. He understood that, and with out animus, that does not imply he isn’t going to attempt to do it,” he continued.
Maher insisted the Trump he met on the White Home will not be the Trump everybody sees on TV. (Screenshot/HBO, Getty Pictures)
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Maher mentioned he walked away with nothing from the White Home besides “hats and a really beneficiant period of time and a willingness to hear and settle for me as a attainable good friend, despite the fact that I am not MAGA, which was the purpose of the dinner.”
He went on to share his favourite second was once they each mentioned they heard from lots of people who appreciated how they have been having dinner collectively, and the way they agreed they did not like those that did not need them to fulfill.
“Do not speak, versus what? Writing the identical editorial for the millionth time and making 25-hour speeches into the wind. Actually, that is what liberals have? He takes the piss out of all people else, and we will maintain ours?” Maher continued, taking a swipe on the latest marathon Senate flooring speech made by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox Information Digital. Story ideas could be despatched to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
