"I mean, we might be friends again" - Bill Maher responds to Larry David's essay mocking his dinner with President Trump

Bill Maher has spoken out following Larry David’s harsh satirical essay titled “My Dinner With Adolf” in The New York Times, which compared the comedian’s recent dinner with Trump to a fictional dinner with Adolf Hitler. After their private encounter, Maher told Piers Morgan Uncensored that the usage of Holocaust imagery was disrespectful and intellectually dishonest.

Angered by the essay, Bill Maher said, “I mean, we might be friends again. I don’t know.”

On an April edition of Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher disclosed that he had dinner with President Donald Trump, which sparked unexpected outcry. Maher has long been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, so many viewers were taken aback by the meeting at Mar-a-Lago.

Maher on the show described how Trump’s actions were a sharp contrast to his public demeanor. He jokingly said:

"You can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured, and why he isn't that in other settings, I don't know, and I can't answer, and it's not my place to answer. I'm just telling you what I saw, and I wasn't high."

Maher’s comments quickly gained widespread attention, with some people applauding his readiness to interact with people from different backgrounds and others accusing him of normalizing Trump’s actions. His longtime friend, Larry David, had the most scathing reply.

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Larry David's "My Dinner With Adolf"

Three weeks later, Larry David wrote an essay titled "My Dinner With Adolf," published in The New York Times on April 21. David portrayed Hitler as surprisingly charming in private, as he recounted a fictitious meeting with the dictator. He wrote:

"Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning."

As the story comes to an end, the narrator, amazed at how quickly his perceptions had changed, gives Hitler a N*zi salute and leaves into the night. The context made the metaphor clear even though David never referenced Trump or Maher by name. From a different perspective, the Times’ opinion editor even made the connection, emphasizing that Maher’s narrative about meeting Trump served as the inspiration for the piece.

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Bill Maher's response: "When you use the Hitler card, you lose the argument."

Appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored on April 25, Bill Maher vehemently objected to the article and its conclusions. Maher said:

“This wasn’t my favorite moment in our friendship."

Then, in a direct attack on David’s choice to compare Trump to Hitler, Bill Maher declared:

“The minute you play the Hitler card, you’ve lost the argument. Hitler, N*zis? C’mon, man. That’s not just exaggeration — it’s dangerous rhetoric.”

Maher, a Jew, was especially critical of the blatant usage of Holocaust comparisons:

“I think it’s kind of insulting to six million dead Jews. That should be in its own place in history. Hitler is the GOAT of evil. We’re just going to have to leave it like that.”

Bill Maher, who often makes fun of Trump on his HBO show and calls his leadership a threat to democracy, has in fact warned about his authoritarian tendencies on several occasions. Maher also made it apparent that he had not changed his position in any way by agreeing to meet with Trump. He said:

"Nobody has been harder and more prescient, I must say, about Donald Trump than me. I don't need to be lectured on who Donald Trump is. Just the fact that I met him in person didn't change that. And the fact that I reported honestly is not a sin either."

Bill Maher has argued throughout the controversy that having a conversation, especially with someone you strongly disagree with, is not only acceptable but essential.

Maher left the possibility of reconciliation open by saying:

“If I can talk to Trump, I can talk to Larry David. I mean, we might be friends again. I don’t know.”

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Larry David has not yet addressed Bill Maher’s comments on Piers Morgan Uncensored. His sole opinion on the meeting was expressed in his fictitious essay. The representatives for the Curb Your Enthusiasm creator declined to speak with Page Six.

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