Benoit Denizel-Lewis in The New York Times:
In 2013, after Trump spent years demanding that Barack Obama prove where he was born, Maher offered $5 million to a charity of Trump’s choosing if he could prove he wasn’t “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” Trump’s lawyer sent over a copy of his birth certificate, “demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan,” then unsuccessfully sued when no check arrived. Maher spent the next decade as one of Trump’s loudest Cassandras, routinely insulting him — “conscienceless scumbag,” “syphilitic monkey” — and warning, correctly, that he wouldn’t concede an electoral loss.
Then came the plot twist that scrambled everyone: The antagonists shared a steak dinner. In March 2025, Kid Rock brokered a sit-down at the White House that Maher saw as a practical attempt to puncture the bubble around the president. “It’s an administration of ‘people are saying,’” he told me. “If that’s how the president gets his information … then be one of the people saying things.”
More here.
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