Bill Maher stopped taking 'cheap shots' at Trump after heated WH meet: 'Have enough on my plate'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Comedian Bill Maher invited Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on his podcast 'Club Random' on Monday, November 24, 2025.

During the episode, he revealed why he stopped taking personal digs at the president, noting that the two went into the merch room at the White House, where Trump yelled at him.

Maher added that he didn’t need to take cheap shots at the president since he had “enough on his plate’ with the policies. 

'I didn't apologize': Bill Maher on the orangutan joke that Trump sued him for

As Bill Maher detailed his conversation with Donald Trump in the White House, he said that the president yelled at him for the orangutan joke he made on 'The Tonight Show' in January 2013. At the time, Trump had filed a lawsuit against the comic for saying that an orangutan’s fur was the only thing in nature that matched Trump’s hair color.

Recalling the conversation, the comic said that he didn’t apologize to Trump about the same, as it was a satirical response to him demanding Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

“Which I thought was wrong and racist and not cool,” Maher said. 

Bill Maher further told Lara that Trump accepted his perspective, and the comic also admitted to taking “cheap shots” that were unnecessary. He further said he was “bored” with Donald Trump since he had been in the public eye for more than a decade, even before he was a presidential candidate. 

Bill Maher reflects on keeping the peace with Trump

Bill Maher added that since the conversation at the White House, he hadn’t made any jokes about the president’s weight, hair, makeup, or Melania. He stated that he had enough on his plate with the policies and didn’t need to “go there,” and that was how “people bridge.”

“You make a little thing here, I make a little move this way. It doesn’t hurt me, it doesn’t hurt you,” he stated. 

Maher added that he liked it better this way and recalled when the comic’s writers had given him jokes about the widely discussed bruise on Trump’s hand. He told them to save themselves, asserting that Maher was 70 years old himself, and that could be his hand in the future. He assured that he was not going to make fun of physical deformities because it was fun for “a minute,” and he didn’t need it. 

As he commented on people needing to “give something sometime” on a bigger scale, Lara Trump agreed. However, Maher objected by saying that her side didn’t do it either. Lara stated that her side had also been “really beaten down” in a lot of ways and “unfairly represented” and “attacked” in multiple ways.