Bill Maher’s Dinner With Trump May Have Earned ‘Real Time’ a Renewal
For late-night hosts in America, surviving the conservative takeover of American culture and media might just be about remembering the immortal words of DJ Casper: “Sliiiiide to the right!”2025 was the year when President Donald Trump and his loyalists in both the FCC and in the public sector went mask-off with their attempts to silence comedian critics of the Commander in Chief. FCC chair Brendan Carr managed to bully ABC affiliates and Disney itself into temporarily suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! back in September, and, following the Ellison family’s acquisition of Paramount Global over the summer, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert learned that the entire franchise will cease to exist at the expiration of Colbert’s current contract this spring.On the other hand, Real Time with Bill Maher just earned a renewal that will secure the 69-year-old centrist comedian’s place at HBO through 2028. Maher, whose public opinion of Trump significantly warmed following his much-criticized dinner at the White House back in early 2025, is now poised to be the centerpiece of HBO’s comedy portfolio as Warner Bros. Discovery approaches its own acquisition deal with Netflix.
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Given how massive, industry-shaking mergers are subject to the personal approval of the President, having one of Trump’s dinner buddies on staff could make Maher’s contract extension worth every penny.Since dining with the President on the urging of their mutual friend Kid Rock, Maher has praised Trump as a peacekeeper and a conversationalist on both Real Time and his podcast Club Random. Maher is also one of the foremost “moderate” Democrats who is constantly decrying his own party for its fanaticism while chopping it up with Trump allies like Joe Rogan. While Maher continues to levy specific criticisms of Trump's actions on Real Time and Club Random, it's fair to say that, as far as Democrats go, Maher has got to be one of Trump's absolute favorites.Despite claims to the contrary by Paramount's new owners at Skydance Media, many late-night fans believe that the announcement that CBS would end The Late Show – which, notably, came just days after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount's payout to the President over Trump's 60 Minutes lawsuit – was motivated by the company's eagerness to appease a President who seems to be using regulatory mechanisms like the FCC for personal gain as they awaited government approval on a multi-billion-dollar acquisition deal.It's certainly possible that Real Time is still a major moneymaker at HBO, despite how competitors claim that late-night shows in general are burning through money faster than Javier Milei. However, with Warner Bros. Discovery in a very similar situation to the one Paramount found itself in when they pulled the plug on Colbert, the fact that Maher has taken a far friendlier approach to the President in contrast to his contemporaries couldn't have hurt Real Time's case for renewal.When comparing the situations of Colbert, Kimmel and Maher, late-night shows appear to have a significantly higher survival rate when they play nice with the President – Jimmy Fallon might just end up as the head of NBC before this term is up.
