Longtime critic Bill Maher said Donald Trump was ‘gracious and measured’ in what he described as a positive meeting with the president, to the point that he walked away with a cheeky gift.

Maher has always attacked Trump on his HBO show dating back over a decade, when the two were involved in a lawsuit over Maher claiming the president’s father was an orangutan. 

On Friday’s show, he took time out exclusively to ‘give you my book report on my visit to the White House,’ which saw him have dinner with Trump and UFC owner Dana White.

The lefty comedian confirmed the meeting had been arranged by musician and Trump fan Kid Rock, who also attended: ‘Because we share a belief that there’s gotta be something better than hurling insults at each other from 3,000 miles away.’

He slammed those who saw the event as some kind of important diplomacy meeting.

‘For all the people who treated this like it was some sort of summit meeting, you’re ridiculous. Like I was gonna sign a treaty or something? I’m a f***ing comedian, I have no power! He’s the most powerful leader in the world, I’m not the leader of anything,’ Maher said. 

The comic did say that he wanted to represent ‘a contingent of centrist-minded people who believe there’s got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.’

He confirmed that Trump was a ‘different’ person than he’d seen in the public eye over the last decade and even the night before, when the president publicly wondered if the meeting was even a good idea.

Longtime critic Bill Maher said Donald Trump was ‘gracious and measured’ in what he described as a positive meeting with the president , to the point that he walked away with a cheeky gift

On Friday’s show, he took time out exclusively to ‘give you my book report on my visit to the White House ,’ which saw him have dinner with Trump and UFC owner Dana White

‘The guy I met is not the person who, the night before, s***-tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea, and what a deranged asshole I was.’ 

‘He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public,’ Maher added. 

Perhaps most striking to Maher was that Trump ‘laughed’ and has a sense of humor about himself. 

‘First good sign, before I left for the capital, I had my staff collect and print out this list of almost 60 different insulting epithets that the president said about me,’ Maher said.

‘I brought this to the White House because I wanted him to sign it, which he did with good humor,’ he added.

He joked about how the hoards of MAGA haters must be hating this: ‘I know as I say that, millions of liberal sphincters just tightened.’

‘I’m gonna report what happened and you decide. If that’s not enough pure Trump hate for you, I don’t give a f***,’ Maher said unapologetically. 

He said that the president did not ask him for his support and when he gifted Maher several Trump hats, he didn’t ask him to take a photograph wearing them. 

In a Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump expressed concerns about the upcoming summit

Trump signed a list of insults the president had directed at Maher over the years ‘with good humor’

‘I’m just taking it as a positive this person exists because everything I’ve ever not like about him was, I swear to God, absent, at least on this night with this guy,’ he said.

The discussion largely was one of Trump asking for Maher’s thoughts on various hot political topics, which he said he was heard out on, if not agreed with. 

He confronted Trump mostly that he agreed with him on several issues, like immigration, improving police morale, keeping transgender people out of women’s sports and several other ideas.  

‘I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him,’ he said.

Maher said that while he voted for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, ‘I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was comfortable talking to Donald Trump.’

‘I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days,’ he said, taking shots at liberals for their ineffective means of protest against the president.

The pair even joked about the orangutan lawsuit, with Maher explaining he didn’t like how he discussed Barack Obama’s place of birth and Maher saying the president understood. 

All along, he seemed to reiterate that he wished the Trump he met would be like that all the time, asking: ‘Why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?’

All along, Maher seemed to reiterate that he wished the Trump he met would be like that all the time, asking: ‘Why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?’

Maher said that while he voted for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, ‘I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was comfortable talking to Donald Trump’ 

‘I went into the mind and that’s what’s down there. A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person lives there, which I know is f***ed up, its just not as f***ed up as I thought it was,’ he said in summary. 

He said that he believes that the pair will likely go back to insulting each other, joking about Trump starting ‘a new list.’

However, he said that he believes Trump understands that ‘I have a job to do.’

‘MAGA fans, don’t worry. Your boy gave me nothing, just hats and a very generous amount of time and a willingness to accept me as a possible friend even though I’m not MAGA, which was the point of the dinner,’ he said.

However, late on, the two shared a moment in the Oval Office where both admitted that there were a lot of people who liked that they were meeting but a lot of people who didn’t want them to meet whatsoever.

It was there that they were both in complete agreement. 

‘The people who don’t even want us to talk? We don’t like you,’ he said.

Then, he took a shot at Democrats who were against ‘platforming’ Trump and Senator Cory Booker’s recent marathon speech at the Capitol. 

Maher took a shot at Democrats who were against ‘platforming’ Trump and Senator Cory Booker’s (pictured) recent marathon speech at the Capitol

‘The people who don’t even want us to talk? We don’t like you,’ Maher said of his meeting with Trump

‘Really? Don’t talk? As opposed to what? Writing the same editorial for the millionth time and making 25-hour speeches into the wind? Really, that’s all liberals have?’

He summed it up by saying: ‘That’s my report, you can hate me for it but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured and why he isn’t that in other settings I don’t know and I can’t answer and it’s not my place to answer.’

The comic, notorious for his marijuana advocacy, couldn’t help but quip: ‘I’m just telling you what I saw and I wasn’t high. What a missed opportunity.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment. 

On his Truth Social page, Trump had expressed concerns about the meeting with the liberal comedian.

‘I got a call from a very good guy and friend of mine, Kid Rock, asking me whether or not it would be possible for me to meet, in the White House, with Bill Maher, a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything or anyone Trump,’ the president lamented Sunday night.

‘I really didn’t like the idea much, and don’t like it much now, but thought it would be interesting,’ he continued before revealing what he thought would be the biggest issue.

‘The problem is, no matter how much he likes our Favorite President, ME, he will publicly proclaim what a terrible guy I am, etc., very much like the Democrats at my recent Address to the Joint Session of Congress, where I stated, correctly, that no matter what I said or did, they wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh and certainly they wouldn’t be in any way “nice.”‘

Kid Rock said he wanted to broker the meeting to send a message of ‘unity’ to Americans

Still, Trump suggested he is excited for the summit.

‘Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be proven wrong?’ he wrote. ‘In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend. 

‘I look forward to meeting with Bill Maher, Kid Rock and, I believe, even the Legendary Dana White will be present,’ Trump concluded.

‘It might be fun, or it might not, but you will be the first to know,’ he vowed. 

The post came shortly after Kid Rock, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, announced he was going to take the Real Time with Bill Maher host for a visit to the White House on Glenn Beck’s show.

‘I’m actually going to try and unite this country and I’m starting at the end of the month, I’m taking Bill Maher to the White House for dinner,’ he said, noting that Maher ‘has done nothing but talk smack about the president since day one.’

The ‘Picture’ crooner then went on to say he wanted to broker the meeting to send a message of ‘unity’ to Americans.

Similarly, Maher told fellow comic Andrew Schultz in an episode of his podcast Club Random that debuted on Sunday that the meeting is happening. 

The Real Time host told the president various issues where he agreed with him

‘Kid Rock was here a couple of weeks ago, and he said, “I want you to meet Trump.” He said, “I’m gonna take you to the White House.” So now we’re gonna do that,’ Maher said.

Schultz then asked Maher whether he worried about criticism from other liberals over the meeting. 

‘There will be lots of people on the left who will be like, “How dare you talk to this man.” It’s like “f**k you, I’m not playing this game that you mean girls play,”‘ Maher replied. 

“Oh, you know what? You can’t sit at my lunch table, because I’m just not talking to you.”

‘Not talking to you? You lost the election,’ Maher said he would tell the liberal critics. ‘Who the fuck do you think you have to talk to?’ 

The Real Time host has long insulted Trump – even before his formal entry into politics, with a lawsuit launched by the president in 2013 over claims made by the comedian that Trump’s father was an orangutan. 

He also recently ripped into a Trump supporter guest on his show as he pressed her to admit the first seven weeks of his second term have ‘gone really badly.’ 

The talk show host got into the fiery argument with journalist and author Batya Ungar-Sargon on his Friday night show, saying her fervent support for Trump ‘makes no sense.’ 

‘We don’t have time to f*** around, I’ve got to go right at you,’ Maher said to Ungar-Sargon as he began the panel segment of his show. 

‘When I first read you, you were a conservative Republican, but not crazy,’ he said. 

‘Like I read you in Newsweek, Time magazine, and I’m not saying you’re crazy now, but you went from just a conservative leaning right to a Trump supporter, someplace I would never go.’

Ungar-Sargon responded, ‘the night is young, Bill’, to which he said: ‘It is not ever going to be that young. 

‘And I’m just wondering what you think now,’ Maher continued. ‘We’re approaching two months in. 

‘I mean, you must have a feeling in your gut, look me in the eye and tell me you don’t (think) that this is really going badly, and I shouldn’t have thrown my lot in with this team.’ 

Ungar-Sargon, the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek, responded to Maher’s taunt that she felt ‘the opposite.’ 

‘I feel proud,’ she said. ‘I was never a Republican or a conservative. I was a leftist and I am still a leftist. I’m just a MAGA leftist now.’ 

‘That makes no sense,’ Maher countered. 

But Maher has also been outraged by the ‘woke’ excesses of liberals.

He even recently expressed support for Trump’s decision to get rid of the Department of Education. 

Meanwhile, Trump hit out at Maher as a ‘befuddled mess, sloppy and tired’ as recently as late 2024.