Donald Trump is once again praising Bill Maher following a dinner he had at the White House with the HBO host along with Stephen A. Smith and Kid Rock.
“It was a great dinner, it was a very informative dinner,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “Smart people. Stephen A. is great. Bill Maher — I will tell you what. He likes me a lot more than people understand, and I actually like him. It was a good dinner.”
Maher had dinner with Trump last year at the White House, with Kid Rock arranging the get together. But Trump later raged at Maher, writing on Truth Social in February, “It was a total waste of time for me to have this jerk at the White House.” He blasted Maher for some of his humor.
In March, after The Atlantic reported that the Kennedy Center would award Maher with its Mark Twain Prize, then White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that he would not be getting the award. But Maher was announced as the recipient the following week. Trump did not attend the ceremony in June, but some members of his administration did.
Trump told reporters that at the Thursday evening dinner, “we talked about everything. It lasted a long time. And even though they have to sort of put on a certain facade for their people, they like Trump, and I actually like them.” He added that they also took a tour of the ballroom, currently under construction.