{"id":487215,"date":"2026-05-16T05:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487215\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T05:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:13:11","slug":"bill-maher-mocks-trump-for-getting-played-by-chinas-xi-jinping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487215\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher Mocks Trump for Getting Played by China’s Xi Jinping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRecent weeks of \u00a0\u201cReal Time with Bill Maher<\/a>\u201d have seen the acerbic comic grill probable Democratic presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom<\/a> for suing Fox News, comparing the California governor\u2019s litigiousness to Trump, and joking that the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s purported suicide note sounds an awful lot like his good pal Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday night\u2019s edition of his HBO show, Maher focused his monologue on President Trump\u2019s state visit to China<\/a>, where he met with its country\u2019s leader, Xi Jinping<\/a>, in Beijing (and Hollywood filmmaker Brett Ratner<\/a>, who has faced a number of sexual-misconduct allegations, appeared in photos in the Epstein files, and directed the \u201cMelania\u201d doc, was along for the ride). Trump and Xi \u201cdiscussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between our two countries, including expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into our industries,\u201d according to<\/a> the administration.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut mostly, it was an old-fashioned lovefest between the two strongmen, with Trump in particular showering Xi with one strange platitude after another. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTrump: he hates China, but he loves Xi,\u201d said Maher. \u201cTo say this was a lovefest between these two guys was an understatement. As he left, [Trump] thanked Xi profusely for his hospitality. And Xi thanked Trump for making China way more popular around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump loves pageantry, after all, and since Xi rolled out the red carpet for him, Maher believes that that\u2019s why Trump was so soft and lovey-dovey toward the leader of a country that he\u2019s been locked in a bitter trade war with for the past year and a half.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou know what? China knows what Trump likes,\u201d offered Maher. \u201cWhat does he like? He likes the pomp and the parades, and he likes the red carpet, and there were thousands of children waving American flags. And Xi, he\u2019s clever, you know? He knows. He bargained like someone who knows he holds the cards now ever since Trump backed down on their big trade war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen, the punchline: \u201cIn fact, as a subtle dig, they served orange chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher wasn\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTrump says with Xi, there\u2019s no games with him. It\u2019s getting a little weird, you know?\u201d cracked Maher. \u201cAt one point, Xi told his translator, \u2018Tell Trump, don\u2019t catch feelings.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recent weeks of \u00a0\u201cReal Time with Bill Maher\u201d have seen the acerbic comic grill probable Democratic presidential hopeful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[16139,381,356,18,117,19,17,19245,128,3997],"class_list":{"0":"post-487215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bill-maher","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-real-time-with-bill-maher","16":"tag-tv","17":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116582548071095519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}