THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?
SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).
- President Trump unleashed a roughly 1,323-word Truth Social tirade against Bill Maher Sunday night, calling him a “major POTHEAD,” a “dumb SLEAZEBAG” and a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER.”
- The explosion came just ten days after their second White House dinner, which Maher publicly defended Friday while continuing to criticize Trump on his HBO show.
- Trump accused Maher of lying about California voters, questioned whether his audience’s laughter is real, and confirmed he’s considering moving White House reporters out of their current workspace.
LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).
Well, it looks like Bill Maher won’t be getting a third dinner invitation to the White House.
And judging by President Donald Trump’s latest Truth Social post, he probably shouldn’t expect a Christmas card either.
Just ten days after welcoming the HBO comedian to the White House for their second dinner together, Trump unleashed a Sunday-night broadside that ran approximately 1,323 words — reportedly the longest social-media post of his career.
The president began by calling Maher a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER.”
That was the warm-up.
By the time Trump finished, Maher had been labeled a “major POTHEAD,” a “dumb SLEAZEBAG,” a coward, a liar and a man whose television audience supposedly needs mechanical assistance to find him funny.
So much for the after-dinner glow.
According to CNN and the Factba.se presidential-post archive, the extraordinary message was Trump’s longest social-media post among nearly 97,500 catalogued messages dating back to 2011.
The immediate trigger was Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time,” during which Maher discussed his latest meeting with the president while continuing to criticize Trump’s policies, polling and Republican candidates.
Maher had actually defended his decision to return to the White House despite complaints from liberals who believe he shouldn’t socialize with Trump at all.
“Yeah, I did it again, bitches!” Maher announced to his audience, explaining that he preferred confronting the president face-to-face rather than attacking him from a distance.
He also offered a remarkably flattering description of Trump’s behavior in private.
“He does listen,” Maher said. “He looks you in the eye, he never interrupts, he never gets mad, he listens.”
Apparently, that doesn’t necessarily apply to what happens after the president watches your television show.
Trump’s response was a spectacular reversal from his own description of the dinner just days earlier.
After the October 15 gathering, which also included Stephen A. Smith and Kid Rock, Trump had described the evening as a success and suggested Maher liked him more than people realized.
Now?
“I learned nothing, and felt it was a waste of time,” Trump declared Sunday.
He also challenged the length of the dinner.
Maher and Smith had described a meeting lasting approximately four hours. Trump insisted it lasted only two hours, perhaps less, and claimed the White House had timestamps to prove it.
That’s an unusual argument to emerge from a dinner party. Most hosts simply send guests home with leftovers.
But the president had considerably more on his mind than the clock.
Trump accused Maher of being intoxicated during the gathering, claiming the comedian carried alcohol through the White House and appeared unwell.
Then came the president’s unsolicited lifestyle advice.
He described Maher as a “major POTHEAD” and said the comedian should stop using marijuana because of possible health consequences.
Maher has spoken publicly for years about his marijuana use, but Trump’s description of his condition at dinner was the president’s own account.
The president also claimed Maher had repeatedly sought access to him through television executive Chuck LaBella and mutual acquaintance Kid Rock.
According to Trump, LaBella made numerous calls requesting meetings and encouraging the president to appear on Maher’s show.
Trump insisted that he had no intention of becoming a guest.
The Daily BS has been following this unlikely relationship for weeks.
Maher previously argued that liberals should be willing to speak directly with Trump and suggested the president could benefit from hearing people who disagreed with him.
That philosophy brought Maher considerable grief from fellow entertainers, including Larry David, whose satirical response to the first dinner compared the encounter to dining with Adolf Hitler.
Maher dismissed that kind of ideological purity and returned to Washington anyway.
And what did he get for his trouble?
A presidential review longer than some congressional speeches.
But the insults weren’t Trump’s only complaints.
He took particular offense at Maher’s discussion of alleged noncitizen voting in California.
Trump claimed federal investigators had recently identified 20,000 suspected illegal voters and accused Maher of misrepresenting the administration’s election-enforcement efforts.
Those California investigations are already the subject of litigation, with state officials challenging the reliability of federal allegations about voter eligibility.
Trump nevertheless treated Maher’s commentary as another example of what he considers dishonest political coverage.
The president also disputed Maher’s discussion of his approval ratings, citing polling he said showed extraordinarily high support among Republicans.
He contrasted that with Maher’s contention that Trump was becoming a political liability for some Republican candidates.
Then Trump arrived at one of his favorite subjects: television ratings.
He mocked HBO, dismissed Maher’s popularity and suggested the comedian’s audience laughter was suspiciously enthusiastic.
Trump even raised the possibility that the program uses a “Laughter Machine.”
For a comedian who earns his living getting people to laugh, that’s a particularly personal accusation.
The president also praised former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who appeared on Friday’s “Real Time” and defended Trump during a contentious conversation.
But buried inside the lengthy attack was a fresh White House development.
Trump directly addressed reports that he was considering relocating the reporters who currently work in the White House briefing-room area.
He denied any intention of replacing the briefing room with a swimming pool.
But he confirmed that a move remains under consideration.
“I am thinking about moving the Press, and putting them in a different location,” Trump wrote, explaining that the existing space could be used for other White House needs.
That’s a significant statement, particularly after earlier reporting about the president’s frustration with press access and the layout of the West Wing.
And there was one more warning for Maher.
Trump suggested he no longer wanted Republicans helping the HBO host by appearing on his program or treating him as an influential independent political voice.
Maher has cultivated a peculiar position in American media. He criticizes Trump frequently, but also challenges progressive orthodoxy on speech, political correctness, immigration and other cultural controversies.
Those disagreements with the left have occasionally made his monologues popular with conservative audiences.
Trump’s Sunday message suggested the president has run out of patience with the arrangement.
“You’re also a coward who is afraid to tell the truth,” he told Maher.
Then came the unmistakable closing instruction.
“Bill: Don’t call anymore.”
Maher had not issued a direct public response to the Sunday-night tirade in the initial reporting.
For now, the relationship has completed an extraordinary cycle: years of public insults, a surprising White House dinner, renewed insults, another dinner, another friendly discussion — followed by the longest social-media message Trump has ever posted.
DBS WIRE SOURCES (I’ve got all day).
- President Donald Trump — Full October 25 Truth Social statement
- New York Post — Trump unloads on Bill Maher in record-length post
- Mediaite — Trump’s tirade and Maher’s comments after second White House dinner
- LateNighter — Record-length post and Friday’s Real Time monologue
- CNN — White House press relocation remarks and record-length post
RELATED DAILY BS COVERAGE:
- The Daily BS — Trump hosts Maher and Stephen A. Smith for White House dinner
- The Daily BS — Trump invites Bill Maher to dinner again
- The Daily BS — Bill Maher says Trump secretly dislikes his own advisers
- The Daily BS — Maher says Larry David friendship ended over Trump dinner controversy
