President Trump called his White House dinner with Bill Maher, Stephen A. Smith and Kid Rock great and informative, even as the HBO comic keeps blasting him on air.
President Donald Trump told reporters Friday that a Thursday night White House dinner with comedian Bill Maher, sports commentator Stephen A. Smith, and musician Kid Rock ran long and went well.
Trump said the group talked about everything, toured the ballroom under construction, and left him with a better view of his guests. The sit-down put a liberal late-night host, a blunt sports voice, and a country-rock star at the same table with a president who still draws elite media scorn for talking to people outside the usual circle.
Speaking as he departed the White House, Trump did not hide his satisfaction. He called the meal great, said it lasted a long time, and made clear he liked the company.
Per C-SPAN, as Fox News Digital carried his remarks, Trump put it this way:
"The dinner last night with Kid Rock and Stephen A. [Smith] and Bill Maher was great. I think they had a good time. We talked about everything. It lasted a long time. And I actually liked them."
He kept going. Trump said they even walked through the ballroom while beams went up overhead, called the evening informative, and singled out Smith.
"We had a great time. We even took a little tour of the ballroom. We took a, we went inside the ballroom with beams that are being put up over our heads. But it was a great dinner. It was a very informative dinner. Smart people. Stephen A. is great."
On Maher, Trump drew a sharper line between private manners and public branding.
"Bill Maher, I tell you what, he likes me a lot more than people understand. And I absolutely like him. It was a good dinner."
Stephen A. Smith later filled in the clock and the tone. In comments carried by the Washington Examiner, Smith said the White House dinner lasted more than four hours and stayed substantive.
Smith said Trump did not dodge questions, answered every one, and stayed defiant when criticism or disagreement came his way. He also said the night stayed pleasant and respectful, the same read Kid Rock gave on Fox News Friday morning.
"Essentially, it amounted to what I consider to be a very substantive evening. We were there for over four hours in the White House. And Donald Trump did not run from any question. He answered every single question. He was very, very defiant with any criticism that came in his direction or any disagreement. But as Kid Rock went on Fox News on Friday morning and articulated, it was a pleasant meeting. It was respectful."
That account matches Trump’s own claim that the talk ran long and covered a lot of ground. It also undercuts the familiar media script that any conservative president who hosts critics must be getting played or staged.
Maher had already told listeners he would go back. On his podcast, as Just the News reported, the HBO host said the second White House dinner invite came out of the blue after their first meeting, and he accepted.
Maher said Trump had good humor and that he felt more comfortable talking with him than with Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. He also shrugged off the political purity tests that tell entertainers to refuse a president’s table.
"I'm having dinner with him next week. After the first dinner, I went back to doing what I do. Then he just, out of the blue, 'Let's have dinner again.'"
He added that a president can say what he wants, and that he was glad they were talking. Fox News Digital reached out to Maher for comment on the latest dinner; no reply was quoted in that report.
This was not Maher’s first White House meal with Trump. In April 2025 he joined Trump, Kid Rock, and UFC CEO Dana White for dinner. Afterward Maher told his audience Trump was gracious and measured in private, and more self-aware than the TV version suggested.
"You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured. And why 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."
The warm private review did not lock in public restraint. In June, on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” he mocked an Iran-related framework tied to Trump, saying, “We got everything we wanted except for everything we asked for.”
More recently Maher predicted a “classic historical a-- whooping” for Republicans in the midterms and said, “Trump screwed the pooch. That’s what happened. He got drunk with power.”
So the pattern is plain. Maher takes the meeting, describes a civil president when the cameras are off, then returns to sharp on-air shots when the show tape rolls. Trump, for his part, keeps saying the private Maher likes him more than the audience is told.
Jason Mudd, CEO of Axia Public Relations, told Fox News Digital that high-profile dinners carry risk and reward for every guest, and that comedians often joke first and clarify later.
"Bill Maher and other comedians tend to win by joking first and clarifying later. He also has a model. It’s the same one he used in April 2025 on ‘Real Time’ after his first White House dinner with President Trump. He reported what he saw and said it plainly. The moment a host sounds like a surrogate, he loses the credibility that makes him worth quoting."
Mudd’s advice was blunt: anyone invited to an event this visible should decide, in advance, what they will say before, during, and after, whether they accept or not. A dinner this loud can polish a brand or brand someone as a sellout, depending on the next monologue.
Trump’s Friday account did not sound like a man worried about the monologue. He called his guests smart, said he liked them, and treated a four-hour White House table with a liberal comic, a sports star, and a musician as normal presidential business.
In a media culture that often rewards refusal and sneer, the president kept the door open, the guests showed up, and the longest version of the night came from people who were in the room.
