Bill Maher responds to Mark Ruffalo’s political pin at Golden Globe Awards
Bill Maher reacts to Mark Ruffalo’s Renee Nicole Goodpin on the Golden Globes red carpet
The comedian feels “just not going to win” after Bill Maher angered both Democrats and President Donald Trump after his dinner with the president.
On the Feb. 20 episode of HBO’s “Real Time,” Ma referenced President Trump’s Feb. 14 Truth Social post in which the president blasted the late-night show host as a “bastard” and said it would be a “waste of time” for them to have dinner together at the White House in 2025.
Maher said that although the meeting was amicable, he seemed upset because Trump had continued to criticize him over the past year.
“He got mad at me and said the dinner we had was a waste of time. Well, I wasn’t thinking that, but he said I was an asshole, a low-rent lightweight, things like that… because I wouldn’t stop criticizing him,” Maher said. “I never said I would! I know how women feel these days. Men buy you dinner and then expect you to serve it. I’m not that kind of guy.”
Trump claimed in his post that Maher was “extremely nervous” and “not at all confident” when they met, adding that he requested a vodka tonic “within seconds” to “calm his nerves.” Maher said he ordered a margarita but not “right away” and denied being nervous. “Like everyone else, I had a drink before dinner,” he said.
Ma went on to say that his decision to have dinner with Trump seemed to have upset people on both sides of the political spectrum. “I’m like a Democrat with an election coming up. I can’t win,” he joked.
A dinner between Marr and Trump was held at the White House in early 2025 after being organized by Kid Rock, one of the president’s prominent supporters. In April of that year, Mr. Ma said in a monologue on his HBO show that Mr. Trump was surprisingly “polite and thoughtful” to his face. “No crazy person lives in the White House,” he concluded. “The person who often plays crazy people on TV lives there.”
This prompted a backlash from some of Maher’s liberal viewers, who argued that Maher should not have humanized the president in this way. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David parodied Maher’s monologue in a satirical New York Times essay from the perspective of someone who had dinner with Adolf Hitler in 1939 and came away impressed.
Maher has repeatedly defended his dinner with Trump in the months since. In November, he hit back at the “childish” and “purely emotional” criticism, calling it “so unhelpful and ridiculous.”
President Trump’s post about the dinner came almost a year later, on February 14th. The direct inspiration appears to have been a segment on Maher’s show the night before in which he mocked Trump for suggesting that China would take advantage of Canada in a potential trade deal by banning ice hockey. Maher was taken aback by the suggestion, but Trump insisted the comment was a joke.
But on the Feb. 20 edition of “Real Time,” Maher questioned why it was “our job to tell” Trump was joking and suggested the president’s hockey jokes could be improved. “I think we’ll have to workshop it for a while,” Maher quipped.
