The White House, March 31, 2025. A surreal scene unfolds in the president’s private residence. Bill Maher, the acerbic comedian who has spent a decade roasting President Donald Trump as a narcissist, wannabe dictator, and threat to democracy, is breaking bread with the 47th president. Kid Rock, the MAGA maestro who brokered this unlikely summit, sits nearby, grinning. UFC boss Dana White rounds out the crew. They’re not negotiating world peace or signing a treaty. They’re just eating, talking, and laughing — yes, laughing. 

Trump, the man Maher once said lies as he breathes, signs a list of 60 insults he’s hurled at the comedian over the years, chuckling as he hands it back. Maher, the self-proclaimed “old-school liberal,” walks away with a stack of MAGA hats and a confession: Trump, in private, is “gracious and measured.” The guy he met isn’t the unhinged caricature he’s been skewering on HBO’s Real Time for years. What the hell just happened? 

For anyone who has followed Maher’s career, this moment feels like a plot twist in a Franz Kafka novel. Maher, the 69-year-old provocateur, has been Trump’s most relentless critic among major comedians. Since Trump descended the golden escalator in 2015, Maher has wielded his platform to paint the former reality show star as a danger to the republic. He has called Trump a “whiny little bitch,” compared his supporters to North Korean loyalists, and warned that Trump would never leave office voluntarily. On Real Time, Maher has made Trump the butt of countless monologues, accusing him of everything from election theft to siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Just last month, Maher said he’d vote for “Biden’s head in a jar of blue liquid” over Trump. So when Maher announced on his April 11 show that he had dined with Trump at the White House and found him surprisingly human, jaws dropped. Liberals cried betrayal. Conservatives smirked. And the political world buzzed with questions: Is Maher going soft? Or is he on to something bigger?

To understand the seismic shock of Maher’s White House visit, you have to rewind through a decade of vitriol. Maher’s disdain for Trump predates the presidency. In 2011, he was already mocking Trump’s birtherism, calling it a racist dog whistle. In 2013, the feud got personal when Maher joked that Trump’s father was an orangutan, prompting a $5 million lawsuit from Trump (later dropped). When Trump ran in 2016, Maher didn’t hold back. “He’s a con man,” Maher said on Real Time, warning that Trump’s appeal was rooted in primal charisma, not policy. “He’s a........

© Washington Examiner