New rule: if Donald Trump is getting back his old job, then it might not be worth staying at your current job. That’s the premise that Bill Maher floated on his “Club Random” podcast speaking with Jane Fonda in an episode released Sunday. While interviewing the actor and activist, Maher expressed exhaustion at the prospect of covering Trump’s administration for the next four years.
“I mean I may quit,” Maher told Fonda. “I don’t want to do another… I did Trump. I did all the Trump stuff before anybody. I called him a con man before anybody. I did, ‘He’s a mafia boss.’ I was the one who said he wasn’t going to concede the election. I’ve done it. I’ve seen this fucking—”
“Well then how come he’s so hostile to Jimmy Kimmel and not to you?” Fonda interrupted.
“He’s very hostile to me. He tweets about me every week. Every week he accidentally watches my show and goes, ‘Low ratings loser!’ I’m bored with it,” Maher answered. “The show is the politics. There is no other thing. And he’s going to dominate the news like he always does.”
President-elect Trump last made headlines for attacking Maher back in September, when he wrote in a post on his platform Truth Social, “I seldom watch Low Rated Bill Maher but, when I do, I marvel at the fake laughter on the Show. It sounds like a bad ‘Laugh Machine,’ it’s so obnoxious and disgusting, just like him, always laughing no matter what is said.”
Whether or not Maher is seriously weighing an exit from “Real Time” due to Trump’s coming presidency, the host is supposedly on the books through 2026. Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO renewed “Real Time” for two more seasons back in March.
“Two more years in the dream job of a lifetime, on the network so many dream of being on — I think that’s what we call a no-brainer,” Maher said in a statement at the time. Maher has led “Real Time” on HBO since 2003 and has done 12 comedy specials for the network. “Real Time” was last renewed in 2021 with a two-season guarantor.