(NewsNation) — Journalist and political commentator Geraldo Rivera vented Sunday after comedian Bill Maher offered an effusive review about his recent dinner with President Trump at the White House.
Rivera, NewsNation correspondent-at-large, was criticized when he appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” in 2018 and told Maher the Republican president can be friendly and warm in private.
“Who gives a (expletive),” Maher, a longtime Trump critic, shot back at Rivera then. “He’s running the world now. What does that matter that he was nice to you at Thanksgiving?”
Maher took a different tone last week as he recapped his March 31 dinner with Trump, a meeting brokered by mutual friend Kid Rock. In a “Real Time” segment that has gone viral, Maher praised Trump for being “gracious and measured” and for asking his views on political issues.
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“I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists,” Maher said, “because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent at least on this night with this guy.”
Appearing on “NewsNation Prime” over the weekend, Rivera was at a loss to explain Maher’s turnaround and said it was hypocritical.
“He told me very specifically that the reason I like Trump is because he’s nice to me. I mean, he really was very insulting, Bill Maher was,” Rivera said. “He challenged my judgment. He mocked my feelings for the president.”
Rivera agreed, however, that Maher’s goal of lowering the temperature in political discourse is a worthy one.
“We don’t have to attack, we don’t have to disparage, we don’t have to put down,” Rivera said. “I am not upset that he’s come around.”
