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Bill Maher’s Dinner With Donald Trump
What the comedian misses about the President’s true nature
On a recent Real Time, comedian Bill Maher’s HBO talk show, the host describes his White House dinner with President Donald Trump. The event was set up by Bob Ritchie, a.k.a. Kid Rock, who “f*cking loves Trump,” as he told Maher on an earlier episode.
Friday morning in Los Angeles, where Maher tapes the show, he perches on a stool and the camera zooms in for a medium close up. “I’m just reporting,” he says, and proceeds to tell us how the dinner went.
In summary: he found Trump “gracious” and “measured.” Each time the comedian brought up a difficult topic, including January 6th, Trump countenanced it well. No rage, no name-calling, just a demure smile or an agreeable comment. “‘Oh yeah, okay, that’s true,’” he said about the reason past presidents might have kept dogs. (Because they liked them; not for political reasons.) When he told Maher the best thing about Reagan was his hair, Maher reminded about Reagan brokering the end of communism. “You’re right,” Trump said.
Maher gapes at the audience and smacks his lips. “I’m just telling you how it went down; make of it what you will.” Trump was a different person than the bombastic, often angry, even vicious public persona, Maher says. To prove it, he had…