Bill Maher tussled with liberal author Sam Harris on Monday after Harris said he would not have accepted President Donald Trump’s invitation to dinner were he in Maher’s shoes.
Recalling his White House dinner with Trump on his Club Random Podcast, Maher said, “Now, you know, we can do this ‘should I go to the White House?’ One, who wouldn’t take that offer up? Please, it’s a private dinner with the president. Just stop it. Secondly, when I come back, should I lie about it? I didn’t.”
“I could not have taken that invitation,” replied Harris. “I completely understand why you went. I mean, it’s totally convincing–”
Maher interrupted, “But I honestly feel like your position is not someone who wants to actually make the country better. It’s someone who just wants to wallow in Trump hate.”
“No, no, no. You know I want to make the country better, and I’m not wallowing in anything,” insisted Harris. “I just– what I’m seeing is the possibility of that errand backfiring.”
After Maher questioned, “How?! On who?” Harris replied, “The way it backfired in your case. I mean, it backfired. Talk about the aftermath. I mean, he’s now attacking you for having come.”
“Proving my point that I never pulled a punch, never stopped being– doing my job,” argued Maher. “There was never a deal on the table.”
Harris pressed, “But what was accomplished? Was anything accomplished? It just seems like a lot of pain.”
“Look, I don’t read my social media,” Maher answered. “So pain? You know, all I hear is when I go out in public, I walk into a restaurant, and 20 people come up to me and say, ‘Thank God for you and for keeping it down the middle and for being honest to both sides.’ No, I know there are people probably sitting in that restaurant thinking, ‘There’s the asshole that had dinner with Trump,’ and I know in this town, the super-woke show business community, like most of them don’t like me for that. But I don’t feel like that is a sophisticated position that I have to respect.”
Harris argued, “There’s no one who should be angry at you for doing that. The fact that you did it is totally understandable. I’m just saying that it was like, I mean, honestly this like a jump ball situation. It’s not clear to me what should or could happen here, but my intuition is there’s no– just for me, personally, it’s completely foreseeable that that would be a failed project, and I would come back and my recounting of it would be, ‘Of course I was charmed by the guy, he’s normal behind closed doors. He’s a great host, you know, his vibes are surprisingly good.’”
“It wasn’t about the fact he’s charming, it’s about the fact that I was able to have a human conversation with him,” insisted Maher.
After Harris asked, “Do you think you had a human conversation with him given the way he’s spun the conversation since?” Maher conceded, “No.”
President Trump attacked Maher in a Truth Social post last month, mocking the host for having “ZERO confidence” during his dinner with him at the White House.
“Sometimes in life you waste time! T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed,” wrote Trump. “He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a ‘Vodka Tonic.’”
Trump went on to complain that Maher had not been sufficiently supportive of his administration on his show since the dinner.
“It was a total waste of time for me to have this jerk at the White House,” he wrote. “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!”
Watch above via Club Random Podcast.
The post Bill Maher Tussles With Podcast Guest Who Gave Him Flak for Dining With Trump: You Just Want to ‘Wallow in Trump Hate’ first appeared on Mediaite.