Larry David took aim at Bill Maher for his praise of a recent dinner with President Donald Trump by writing a satirical essay for The New York Times, mockingly titled "My Dinner With Adolf."
"I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship," David wrote in his fictitious account. "But 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."
Maher, an outspoken critic of Trump, hinted at his March 31 dinner with the president on social media, leading many to expect a fiery exchange. But on the April 12 episode of "Real Time," Maher surprised viewers by calling Trump "gracious" and "more self-aware than he lets on," according to Variety.
"Everything I've ever not liked about him was — I swear to God — absent, at least on this night with this guy," Maher said at the time. "He mostly steered the conversation to, 'What do you think about this?' I know: your mind is blown. So is mine."
For his part, Trump has been a critic of Maher, previously calling the comedian a "low-life" with a show that is "dead," Variety reported. But the White House visit was enough to change Maher's mind on the president.
"A crazy person doesn't live in the White House," he added. "A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is [expletive] up. It's just not as [expletive] up as I thought it was."
In his essay, David mimicked Maher's tone.
"I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as un-Führer-like," he wrote. "That amused him to no end, and I realized I'd never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning."
The New York Times Deputy Opinion Editor Patrick Healy, in a companion piece, wrote about the origins of David's essay.
"Larry listened to Bill Maher talk about his recent dinner with Trump," Healy wrote. "Bill, a comedian Larry respects, said in a monologue on his Max show that he found the president to be 'gracious and measured' compared with the man who attacks him on Truth Social. Larry's piece is not equating Trump with Hitler. It is about seeing people for who they really are and not losing sight of that."