{"id":327005,"date":"2026-03-07T16:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T16:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/327005\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T16:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T16:49:17","slug":"this-week-brought-a-very-meta-real-time-with-bill-maher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/327005\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week Brought a Very Meta \u201cReal Time With Bill Maher\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little over a year ago, the heart of an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher<\/a> 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\u2019s Real Time focused on Maher\u2019s response \u2014 with some meta critiques of the president\u2019s priorities folded in.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s criticism was understandable.<\/p>\n

He returned to this subject in the editorial segment that closed out the episode, arguing that Trump \u201csuffers from Bill Maher Derangement Syndrome.\u201d Maher revisited his dinner at the White House, and corrected the inaccuracies in Trump\u2019s account. He also addressed the president directly, contrasting his behavior on social media with \u201c[t]he normal human being I saw the night we broke bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to explain why he continues to criticize Trump: \u201cYou do things that are racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic and corrupt.\u201d And he argued that there was one big difference between the two of them: \u201cI can admit when I\u2019m wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Annabelle Gurwitch, the author, most recently, of The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker<\/a>, 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 \u201cpharmaceuticals, caffeine and personal lubricants\u201d for her current appearance.) Maher brought up his father\u2019s lung cancer diagnosis, and the two discussed the change in treatment and prognosis between then and now.<\/p>\n

Gurwich described the medication that she has used as \u201ca drug that turns off one gene in my body.\u201d And she was highly critical of the Trump administration\u2019s cuts to research funding. \u201cI can\u2019t afford one year of lost research,\u201d she said, and went on to criticize the inequality that prevents some people from having access to the drug in question.<\/p>\n

Maher and Gurwich disagreed on the existence of the mind-body connection. \u201cToo many people who have had a much better attitude than me have died,\u201d she told him. And she pointed to the connection between particulate matter and lung cancer<\/a> as an urgent reason to reduce pollution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

During the episode\u2019s 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, \u201cWith every bomb we drop, it\u2019s an investment we didn\u2019t make at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lemon also had plenty to say about both what was happening in Iran and the broader state of American politics. \u201cDonald Trump has completely \u2014 sorry about this \u2014 neutered the legislative branch, and I think the legislative branch needs to get its power back,\u201d he said. The apology was directed to Schiff; for his part, the Senator agreed with that sentiment.<\/p>\n

Other notable moments from this week\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n

Maher on the economy: \u201cThe bad news is, we lost 92,000 jobs. The good news is, one of them was Kristi Noem\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maher on the Secretary of Defense: \u201cPete Hegseth has to come up with a name for one of our military actions that doesn\u2019t sound like a nickname for his penis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maher on media mergers: \u201cWelcome aboard, Paramount! I hope you like me. But in case you don\u2019t, I ain\u2019t gonna change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMeet your guide<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Tobias<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tTobias Carroll<\/p>\n

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects \u2014 including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks \u2014 for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men\u2019s Journal.
\n
\nAt InsideHook, he has\u2026<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tMore from Tobias Carroll \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore Like This<\/p>\n

This article appeared in an InsideHook newsletter. Sign up for free<\/a> to get more on travel, wellness, style, drinking, and culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A little over a year ago, the heart of an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-327005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}