Larry David Spoofs Bill Maher’s White House Visit with Scathing Essay
A scathing spoof essay written by Larry David has been published in the New York Times, responding to Bill Maher’s recent glowing account of his dinner with President Trump in the White House. The essay, entitled "My Dinner With Adolf," has been making waves in the media, with many praising David’s biting satire.
According to The Guardian, which first reported on Maher’s dinner with Trump, the late-night pundit described the president as "gracious" and "much more self-aware than he lets on" on the 11 April episode of his show, Real Time (The Guardian, 2025). Maher’s comments were met with surprise, given his previous criticisms of Trump, who had called Maher a "lowlife" and his show "dead."
In his essay, David closely mirrors Maher’s tone, saying that one of his own jokes "amused him to no end, and I realised 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, 2025). David’s piece is a clear satire of Maher’s comments, and is not meant to be taken literally.
The essay details a fictional dinner between David and Hitler, in which the author is struck by the Führer’s warmth and humanity. David writes, "Then a beaming Hitler said, ‘Hey, if I can kill Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, I can certainly kill a dog!’" (The New York Times, 2025). The joke, which is clearly meant to be humorous, has been widely reported as an example of David’s sharp wit.
David’s essay was accompanied by an article by New York Times deputy opinion editor Patrick Healy, who confirmed the origins of the spoof. "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" (The New York Times, 2025).
This is not the first time David has written a spoof article about Trump. In June 2016, he wrote an account of Trump’s meeting with Russian agents, and in 2020, he penned a 3am conversation between Trump and his wife, Melania, about the future of Ukraine. David has also made multiple guest appearances on Saturday Night Live as the independent senator Bernie Sanders, to whom it emerged he was distantly related.
In conclusion, Larry David’s spoof essay is a scathing critique of Bill Maher’s comments about Trump. While Maher’s comments were seen as surprising, given his previous criticisms of the president, David’s essay is a clear satire of Maher’s tone and language. As The Guardian reported, David’s piece is not meant to be taken literally, but rather as a commentary on the way we perceive public figures (The Guardian, 2025).
References:
The Guardian. (2025). Larry David spoofs Bill Maher’s White House visit with scathing essay. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/22/larry-david-spoofs-bill-maher-white-house-visit-trump
The New York Times. (2025). My Dinner With Adolf.
The New York Times. (2025). Larry David’s Spoof Essay: A Commentary on Seeing People for Who They Really Are.
