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President Donald Trump hosted comedian Bill Maher, sports commentator Stephen A. Smith and MAGA musician Kid Rock for an exclusive dinner at the White House on Thursday evening.
According to several accounts, the evening was both friendly and combative, with heated exchanges on the economy and foreign policy which continued late into the night, according to the guests.
The dinner comes just weeks before the November midterm elections, which polls suggest could result in heavy losses for Republicans as many Americans express concerns about the cost of living and the ongoing war in Iran.
The unlikely group of guests revealed how the beer flowed, the debate went on for a long time and they were given a tour of the ballroom. “I had to leave early, like 11 p.m.,” Kid Rock said. “I drink like seven beer and have a blast.”
“They worked on it for hours,” Smith said of Trump and Maher, longtime antagonists who previously dined together at the White House last year.
However, there seems to be agreement on one point: being political opponents does not require being personal enemies.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
On the menu: cocktails and disagreement
Kid Rock, a longtime Trump ally, said the evening started early — with a request for drinks, which the president, a teetotaler, did not respond to.
“We were there around 6:30, 7:00 and waiting to go into the Oval Office to greet the president,” the “American Bad A**” singer told Fox News Friday morning. “I wonder if I can have a cold beer?… Bill asks me if I can have a cocktail? So there was drinking involved.”
The visit included a tour of the White House grounds and the colonnade along the Rose Garden, where Trump displayed photos of past presidents. The portrait of Joe Biden had been replaced by a framed photo with an automatic opening.
“I said that was damn cruel, man,” Smith, a frequent Trump critic, recounted later on his show. “He says ‘it’s funny, isn’t it?'”
The 80-year-old president also took the men through the massive, $330 million White House Ballroom, which remains under construction where the East Wing once stood.
“We walked into the ballroom with beams placed above our heads,” Trump said Friday.
Maher did most of the talking during dinner, according to Smith. The HBO Host In Real Time with Bill Maher raised issues such as “the translators in Afghanistan who needed to be saved” and “Trump’s relatively dismissive attitude toward the economic times we live in.”
“Essentially, this amounts to what I consider to be a very important evening,” said Smith, who describes himself as an independent. “We were at the White House for over four hours, and Donald Trump didn’t shy away from any questions; he answered every question. He was very, very defiant about any criticism that was leveled at him.”
Despite their disagreements, the men found common ground. Smith, an ESPN commentator, credited Trump with signing the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform law, during his first term.
“We all agree that socialism and communism have no place to gain a foothold in our government,” Kid Rock told Fox News.
For Smith, the willingness to cross the aisle was in itself worthy of recognition.
“But the most important thing that (Trump) deserves to be congratulated for and that Bill Maher deserves to be congratulated for is that they worked on it for hours,” Smith said. “Bill Maher made a point: It’s true, I’m a liberal and I’m proud of it, and I don’t like a lot of your policies, and he was on the list with a few of them,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I have to hate you because of that. You don’t have to hate me either.”
The unlikely reunion continued long after the sun went down, even after Kid Rock left to catch a flight to New Jersey.
Asked by reporters about dinner the next day, Trump said: “We talked about everything; it lasted a long time. He added, “Even though they have to kind of put on a front for their people, they love Trump and I really love them.” »
How did this improbable dinner go?
Trump has long had a combative relationship with Maher and Smith, repeatedly trading insults with the two television personalities.
The president called Smith an “arrogant fool” and a “low IQ individual” in June. A month earlier, Smith said of Trump: “The divisions, the way this man acts, the things he says, it’s just very disgusting.” »
Maher, meanwhile, spent more than a decade skewering Trump on his Friday night show, frequently calling him a “whiny little prick” and portraying him as a dangerous character who refuses to accept election defeat. Trump hit back, calling the comedian “highly overrated” and accusing him of suffering from “a terminal case of Trump derangement syndrome.”
Their feud briefly appeared to die down in March last year, when Kid Rock hosted a dinner between the two at the White House. Maher later described Trump as amiable in private — a stark contrast to the combative figure he saw on television. But the insults quickly resumed, even after Maher received the Mark Twain Prize at the Trump-controlled Kennedy Center in June.
Then, about six weeks ago, Trump called Maher with another invitation to the White House, telling him he could bring any guest he wanted, according to Smith.
Smith, who has repeatedly teased a presidential bid, said Maher asked him to join the party. He agreed, he said, because he wanted to criticize Trump “face to face, man to man” and because he had known the president for years before Trump entered politics.
“Oh by the way,” Smith added. “He actually invited me back, with Bill Maher.”
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