Bill Maher Fires Latest Shot in Ongoing War With Trump

Bill Maher has thrown one of Donald Trump’s favorite jabs right back in his face.

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The 79-year-old president spent part of Monday evening on a Truth Social posting spree, including one message that mentioned Maher, 70, by name.

“I can always tell when the president is in a bad mood because he starts posting about me,” the host remarked during Friday’s monologue on Real Time with Bill Maher. “I feel it’s an honor to always be in his tweets, even when they are bad, and they are always bad,” he added.

The president’s Monday post referred to Maher’s talk show as “Low Ratings Bill Maher and his Fake `Laughing Machine,’” and said that Maher, along with “three more limping Late Night Talk Show Hosts,” would be next to “go,” following the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s CBS late-night show, whom the president called “REALLY DUMB.”

The late-night show host responded by reminding the president that he should not be one to talk, asking: “First of all, low ratings? Yours is 35 percent.”

A YouGov/Economist poll shows that Trump’s net approval rating stands at -25 points, with 35 percent of respondents approving of his performance and 60 percent disapproving. The figure marks the lowest approval rating of any president since the survey began in 2009.

Maher’s show, which has been broadcast on HBO since 2003, is currently the network’s most popular program and ranks 160th overall on television, according to USTVDB.

During Friday’s monologue, Maher also fact-checked the president’s claim that he uses a laugh track on his show. “Fake laughing machine, can we get a shot of our audience?” the host asked the camera, as editors cut to stock footage of audience members clapping to play up the president’s jab. In reality, the show is filmed in front of a live studio audience.

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“There. That should settle that,” Maher said.

The president and the HBO host’s relationship has turned increasingly sour over the years.

Maher has previously said he found Trump “gracious” and “measured,” and unlike his public persona, but added that this would not dissuade him from criticizing the administration.

In March 2025, he attended a White House dinner, details of which were later made public after Trump wrote a bizarre post about him on Truth Social on Valentine’s Day, accusing Maher of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The late-night host added that the president instead suffers from “Bill Maher Derangement Syndrome.”

“You texted me soon after the dinner, complaining that I was still part of the ‘lunatic left’ and that you should have won a Nobel Prize for ending wars,” Maher said, pushing back on the president’s account of the dinner, which portrayed the late-night host in a negative light.

“I was having a good time. So were you, Don, because we were talking like real humans, not like that crazy act you put on in public,” Maher said about the dinner.

Last month, the comedian said he initially backed Trump’s decision to strike Iran, but now believes the president has turned the conflict into a dangerous mess with no clear exit strategy.

Though Maher has sometimes spoken positively about Trump’s “refreshing” authenticity, the president appears to view him as just another late-night talk show host, part of a group he has repeatedly clashed with since returning to office—frequently taking aim at Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon, and at times calling for them to be fired.

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