Bill Maher took aim at President Donald Trump’s newly announced memorandum of understanding with Iran on Friday night’s episode of HBO’s Real Time, ridiculing the agreement as a major climbdown and even comparing it to the Stormy Daniels scandal.
During his opening monologue, Maher argued that the administration wound up settling for far less than it initially promised after months of tough rhetoric toward Iran.
“I know why you’re happy, we have an Iran deal, finally a deal with Iran and I I love this deal. We got everything we wanted except for everything we asked for,” said Maher.
He followed that up with a jab at Trump and his family.
“It’s actually a very simple deal. They’re going to stop enriching uranium and Trump is going to start enriching his family.”
As the audience laughed, Maher continued to mock the outcome, joking that the United States had little to show for the effort.
“No, we didn’t even get that, we can get that. We can get anything. I just hope we play Iran in the World Cup so we can beat them at something.”
Maher also seized on the fact that the agreement is a memorandum of understanding rather than a formal treaty.
“Because this, the rest of all, it’s not a deal. It’s a memorandum of understanding. It’s about as legally binding as the sign in the break room that says, please clean microwave.”
“That’s, it, it is nothing. I mean, you know, we started with unconditional surrender, Operation Epic Fury, and now it’s memorandam of understanding, The last thing that got hosed this bad was my dog.”
The comedian then questioned what happened to Trump’s self-styled reputation as a master negotiator.
“I mean, so much. Where’s the big deal maker? What happened to the art of the deal? This is his big clothes? I got news for you. The emperor has no clothes.”
From there, Maher suggested Trump had simply lost interest in the conflict altogether.
“I’d say, Donald Trump, when he gets tired of a relationship, he’s just out. I think he just said to the Supreme Leader, you know, I think we should take a break. I just want to bomb other countries.”
He later argued that other nations could look at the agreement and see incentives rather than consequences.
“Yeah, other countries, they’re looking at this. They’re seeing all that Iran got out of this. They’re getting $300 billion plus sanction listed, lifted, assets unfrozen. They’re all like, bomb us. Bomb us.”
Maher saved one of his sharpest punchlines for the end of the segment, comparing the arrangement to the payment at the center of the Stormy Daniels case.
“Remember when Obama unfroze money? It was like the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world. And now $300 billion, which apparently is going to come from our Gulf allies.”
“Where have I seen this strategy before? Oh yeah, I think I would call it the Stormy Daniels strategy. It’s a third party’s going to send you money and then we’re going to pretend this never happened.”
Watch a clip from Maher’s monologue above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher (which interestingly doesn’t include the Stormy bit, but you can see that part via the below X post).