President Donald Trump didn’t send Bill Maher a valentine on Saturday, February 14. Instead, he lashed out at the Real Time host and said their White House dinner last year was a “total waste of time.”
“Sometimes in life you waste time!” Trump wrote at the start of a rambling, near-500-word Truth Social post on Saturday. “T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed. He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be. He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a ‘Vodka Tonic.’ He said to me, ‘I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared.’ In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!”
Trump said in his post it was a “great dinner” with a “nice guy.” But lately, he wrote, he’s been noticing Maher espousing — in the president’s words and capitalization — “ANTI TRUMP” views on HBO’s Real Time.
Christopher Polk/Variety via Getty Images
The former star of The Apprentice said Maher is making “no mention” of the supposed milestones of Trump’s presidencies, including his assertions that the crime rate in the United States is at its lowest point in 125 years and that Trump has ended eight wars. (PolitiFact deemed the first claim half-true; the Associated Press said the second is exaggerated.)
“In any event, it was a total waste of time for me to have this jerk at the White House,” Trump added, before railing against Maher’s comments about him on Real Time last night. (In that episode, Maher called out Trump for claiming a trade deal between Canada and China would “terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada.” In his Truth Social post, Trump claimed that statement was a joke.)
“Fortunately, [Maher’s] Television Ratings are so low that nobody will learn about his various Fake News statements about me,” he added. “He is no different than [Jimmy] Kimmel, [Jimmy] Fallon, or [Stephen] Colbert but, I must admit, slightly more talented! Anyway, Bill Maher is a highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT, and Republicans should stop using him to show how the Left is coming over our way — Our Base, the Greatest of All Time, laughs at your weakness when you do it!”
Trump concluded: “I’d much rather spend my time MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN than wasting it on him. Bill continues to suffer from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS!), and there is nothing that will ever be done to cure him of this very serious disease. Thank you for your attention to this minor matter! President DJT.”
Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays, 10/9c, HBO
