The senior citizen comedians are fighting. Days after Larry David published a scathingly satirical New York Times op-ed that compared Bill Maher‘s dinner with Donald Trump to a meal with Adolf Hitler, Maher has finally responded. In a guest appearance on Piers Morgan‘s talk show Uncensored, the Real Time with Bill Maher host said that David’s piece was “kind of insulting to 6 million dead Jews.”
The New York Times published the op-ed from the Seinfeld creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star on Monday, April 21. In the essay, “My Dinner With Adolf,” David satirically embodies a vocal critic of Hitler who accepts a dinner invitation from the Führer and winds up being charmed by his unpretentious manner, concluding that the two of them are ”not that different, after all.” Throughout the op-ed, David makes not-so-subtle references to Maher, who has been critical of Trump in the past—but accepted an invitation to dine with the president and other celebrity Trump supporters like Kid Rock last month.
“Eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side—even if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity,” wrote David in the op-ed. “Although we disagree on many issues, it doesn’t mean that we have to hate each other And with that, I gave him a Nazi salute and walked out into the night.”
After his actual dinner with Trump, Maher described the president as “gracious and measured” and “much more self-aware than he lets on” on the April 11 episode of Real Time. “Everything I’ve ever not liked about him was—I swear to God—absent, at least on this night with this guy.”
While he apparently has plenty of praise for Donald Trump, Maher didn’t have anything nice to say about David’s op-ed. While appearing on Morgan’s Uncensored on Thursday, Maher said that the piece made “an argument you kind of lost just to start it.”
“Look, maybe it’s not completely logically fair, but Hitler has really kind of got to stay in his own place,” Maher continued. “He is the GOAT of evil.”
Maher went on to say that while he considers David a friend, his satirical essay “wasn’t my favorite moment of our friendship.” He claimed he didn’t even know the op-ed had been printed until his publicist told him following its publication. Maher told Morgan that he did not want to “make this constantly personal with me and Larry,” adding that “we might be friends again.”
“I can take a shot, and I can also take it when people disagree with me,” Maher said. “That’s not exactly the way I would’ve done it.”
Despite accepting a dinner invitation from Trump and leaving the meal with nothing critical to say about the President or his policies, Maher maintained that he’s still leading the charge when it comes to speaking truth to power. “Nobody has been harder, and more prescient, I must say, about Donald Trump than me,” he claimed. “I don’t need to be lectured on who Donald Trump is.” He went on to defend his decision to dine with Trump as an act of journalism. “Just the fact that I met him in person didn’t change that,” he said. “The fact that I reported honestly is not a sin either.”
Although there seems to be bad blood between the two, Maher also believes there’s a path forward for himself and his old friend Larry David. “There’s got to be a better way than hurling insults and not talking to people,” said Maher, who regularly hurls insults at people on his various platforms. “If I can talk to Trump, I can talk to Larry David too.” Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised if that phone call goes straight to voicemail.
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