President Trump unloaded on "Real Time" host Bill Maher in a lengthy Truth Social post Saturday, calling the television host a "highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT" and a "jerk" after Maher mocked Trump's joke about China ending hockey in Canada.

The sprawling, detailed, and vintage Trump traces the arc of a relationship that began with a White House dinner in April 2025 and ended, as these things often do, with the president reaching for his phone.

Trump's core grievance: he extended hospitality, got a brief window of respect in return, and then watched Maher revert to the same anti-Trump programming that dominates late-night television. The trigger was Maher's reaction to Trump's Truth Social post from Friday night, in which he jokingly suggested that China would "terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup" as part of a broader riff on Canadian trade relations.

Maher apparently treated the joke as a serious policy statement. Trump was not amused.

The dinner that started it all

Trump said Maher requested the White House meeting through a mutual friend. Kid Rock orchestrated a sit-down dinner that included himself, the president, Maher, and UFC CEO Dana White, Fox News reported.

Trump's account of the evening was colorful. He said Maher arrived at the Oval Office visibly shaken:

"He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a 'Vodka Tonic.' He said to me, 'I've never felt like this before, I'm actually scared.' In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!"

Trump said they went on to have "a great dinner" and that Maher "seemed to be a nice guy." On his first show after the visit, Maher was indeed complimentary. He told his audience:

"You can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured."

That window didn't stay open long.

The reversion

Trump described watching Maher's show slide back into familiar territory — territory that every conservative who has accidentally left the TV on after 11 p.m. knows well:

"But then I noticed his show started to devolve into the same old story — Very boring, ANTI TRUMP, no mention of the PERFECT Border, Lowest Crime in 125 years, the Mass Removal of Stone Cold Criminals, the 50,000 DOW, the 7,000 S&P (Both Highest Ever!), Least Number of Murders since 1900, Venezuela, 'Midnight Hammer,' Soleimani DEAD, al-Baghdadi DEAD, Lowest Inflation in YEARS (1.2% for last three months!), the Rebuilding of our Military, Eight War Stoppages, and on, and on, and on!"

The list is Trump at full rhetorical velocity — part policy brief, part scoreboard, part dare. Whether every figure checks to the decimal is beside the point Trump was making: that Maher had plenty of material for a fair segment and chose not to use any of it.

According to Trump, Maher even asked to come back to the White House and requested an invitation to the White House Christmas party. Trump says Maher ultimately didn't attend.

The late-night problem

What makes this particular dustup worth watching isn't the personal back-and-forth — it's what it reveals about the structural incentives of late-night television.

Maher occupies an unusual lane. He's built a brand on occasional heterodoxy — the liberal who'll criticize the left, the comedian who pushes back on political correctness. That brand earned him a White House dinner. It's what makes Republicans occasionally clip his monologues and share them with captions like "Even Bill Maher gets it."

Trump addressed that impulse directly:

"Anyway, Bill Maher is a highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT, and Republicans should stop using him to show how the Left is coming over our way — Our Base, the Greatest of All Time, laughs at your weakness when you do it!"

It's a sharper observation than it might appear at first glance. The conservative habit of celebrating any liberal who briefly sounds reasonable has always been a losing strategy. It grants authority to people who haven't earned it and signals that the right needs left-wing validation to feel confident in its own positions. Maher agreeing with you on one issue doesn't make him an ally. It makes him a broken clock.

Trump lumped Maher in with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert — though he conceded Maher is "slightly more talented" than the rest. Faint praise from a man not known for faint praise.

The joke they couldn't take

The proximate cause of all this — Trump's hockey quip — deserves a moment of its own. Trump had been discussing what he views as Canada's unfair trade practices and the weakness of Canadian leadership. He then posted that China would end hockey in Canada and eliminate the Stanley Cup.

It was obviously a joke. The kind of absurdist jab Trump deploys regularly, and his supporters immediately understand. Maher's decision to treat it as a sincere policy proposal — mocking Trump as though he genuinely intended to abolish professional hockey through Beijing — says more about Maher's audience than about Trump's statement.

Late-night hosts have spent a decade pretending Trump's humor is confusion, and his exaggeration is delusion. The bit is tired. The audiences that remain for it are self-selecting. And as Trump pointedly noted:

"Fortunately, his Television Ratings are so low that nobody will learn about his various Fake News statements about me."

The takeaway

Trump closed his post with characteristic energy, signing off on what he called a "minor matter" with the flourish of a man who clearly enjoyed writing every word of it:

"Regardless, I'd much rather spend my time MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN than wasting it on him. Bill continues to suffer from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS!), and there is nothing that will ever be done to cure him of this very serious disease. Thank you for your attention to this minor matter! President DJT"

The pattern here isn't new. A liberal media figure gets close enough to see the actual Trump — measured, engaging, commanding a room — and admits it publicly. Then the gravity of their audience pulls them back. The honesty lasts one news cycle. The programming lasts forever.

Maher walked into the Oval Office, nervous enough to need a drink. He walked out impressed enough to say so on national television. And within months, he was back to the same material that makes late-night television indistinguishable from a DNC communications shop.

Trump gave him dinner. Maher chose the audience.