A little over a year ago, the heart of an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher was a dinner Maher had attended at the White House, hosted by Donald Trump. (The two men have a mutual friend in Kid Rock.) Last month, the president took to social media to attack Maher and retroactively criticized his behavior at the aforementioned White House dinner. Which meant that a lot of this week’s Real Time focused on Maher’s response — with some meta critiques of the president’s priorities folded in.
Maher pointed out that the president had posted on Truth Social about seeking the unconditional surrender of Iran, followed by eight posts about Maher in the span of an hour. This is, in all honesty, a bizarre thing for a world leader currently leading a bombing campaign on another country to do, and Maher’s criticism was understandable.
He returned to this subject in the editorial segment that closed out the episode, arguing that Trump “suffers from Bill Maher Derangement Syndrome.” Maher revisited his dinner at the White House, and corrected the inaccuracies in Trump’s account. He also addressed the president directly, contrasting his behavior on social media with “[t]he normal human being I saw the night we broke bread.”
He went on to explain why he continues to criticize Trump: “You do things that are racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic and corrupt.” And he argued that there was one big difference between the two of them: “I can admit when I’m wrong.”
Annabelle Gurwitch, the author, most recently, of The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker, joined Maher early in the episode. Her book is about being diagnosed with Stage Four lung cancer, and the medication that has kept her relatively healthy in the years since then. (She credited “pharmaceuticals, caffeine and personal lubricants” for her current appearance.) Maher brought up his father’s lung cancer diagnosis, and the two discussed the change in treatment and prognosis between then and now.
Gurwich described the medication that she has used as “a drug that turns off one gene in my body.” And she was highly critical of the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding. “I can’t afford one year of lost research,” she said, and went on to criticize the inequality that prevents some people from having access to the drug in question.
Maher and Gurwich disagreed on the existence of the mind-body connection. “Too many people who have had a much better attitude than me have died,” she told him. And she pointed to the connection between particulate matter and lung cancer as an urgent reason to reduce pollution.
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CAR-T cell therapy may have wider applicationsDuring the episode’s panel segment, Senator Adam Schiff and journalist Don Lemon joined Maher on stage. They discussed the ongoing bombing campaign in Iran, which prompted a discussion that revisited the Iraq War and the benefits and drawbacks of seeking regime change. Schiff was critical of the effort, saying, “With every bomb we drop, it’s an investment we didn’t make at home.”
Lemon also had plenty to say about both what was happening in Iran and the broader state of American politics. “Donald Trump has completely — sorry about this — neutered the legislative branch, and I think the legislative branch needs to get its power back,” he said. The apology was directed to Schiff; for his part, the Senator agreed with that sentiment.
Other notable moments from this week’s episode:
- Maher on the economy: “The bad news is, we lost 92,000 jobs. The good news is, one of them was Kristi Noem’s.”
- Maher on the Secretary of Defense: “Pete Hegseth has to come up with a name for one of our military actions that doesn’t sound like a nickname for his penis.”
- Maher on media mergers: “Welcome aboard, Paramount! I hope you like me. But in case you don’t, I ain’t gonna change.”
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