Bill Maher Defends Trump Dinner to Sean Penn: ‘You’ll Meet With ‘F*cking Castro – But Not the President?’

Bill Maher on Sunday defended his dinner with President Donald Trump by reminding actor Sean Penn of his past meetings with dictators Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.

During an episode of his Club Random podcast, Maher pushed back against Penn’s criticism of the meeting, which took place in April.

Maher said to the progressive actor, “But you do, I hope, think I did the right thing to have dinner with him.”

Penn replied, “Absolutely, you’re so smart.”

“Look, this is the President of the United States, whether we like it or not, doesn’t matter,” Penn added. “I think that when you talked about it on the show that I would have preferred that I saw his mission or his will to have the dinner, I wish I would have seen it as less successful. Because you’re so smart on policy.”

Maher replied, “Well it was less successful because I never stopped saying all the things I’ve always said about him. It would have been successful if he had somehow seduced me into supporting him.”

Penn revised his criticism to say he would have preferred the HBO host to not have been so charitable to Trump when describing the meeting to his Real Time audience on April 11.

The actor said he would not have sat down with Trump.

Maher said, “Really? You’ll meet with fucking Castro and Hugo Chavez, but not the President of the United States?”

In his monologue after meeting Trump, Maher said, “I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him. And, honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will.”

He added, “You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured.”

Watch above via Club Random.