Bill Maher Takes Aim at Trump over Epstein Documents

Bill Maher dove right into the recently released Jeffrey Epstein documents during his show on Friday night. In his typical style, he opened with a monologue that included several pointed comments aimed at President Donald Trump. Maher humorously noted that now that the government is back in action after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, lawmakers can focus on pressing matters like “reading dead perverts’ emails.”

His sharpest quip came early in the segment. In response to reports claiming that Trump “knew about the girls,” Maher suggested that the former president might have benefitted from learning a thing or two from Hillary Clinton’s notorious approach to technology.

“See, this is why Hillary took a hammer to the server,” Maher joked. “You know what? Sometimes you just have to go to the hammer, folks. The hammer!”

Most of Maher’s commentary centered on Trump’s mentions in various email exchanges involving Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and author Michael Wolff. These messages, which House Democrats released earlier this week, showed Epstein referring to Trump as a “dog that won’t bark” and suggesting that the then-president-elect had spent extensive time with one of his trafficking victims, labeling him as “incredibly evil.”

“Just a quick explanation,” Maher remarked about that lengthy encounter: “It took her that long to explain to him that consumers are the ones paying for the tariffs.”

Trump has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking actions, even though they were friends for over a decade. The White House asserted this week that the new documents show Trump “did nothing wrong,” but Maher ridiculed the ongoing partisan conflict, saying, “There’s this absurd back and forth claiming President Trump is either guilty or not guilty.”

He didn’t stop there with the Clinton references. When her private email server was raided in 2016, it was revealed that an aide had smashed two of her BlackBerry phones with a hammer. Trump had previously commented on this, suggesting, “People who have nothing to hide don’t break their cell phones with a hammer.” Maher framed this behavior in light of Trump’s current issues related to classified documents.

Wrapping up this segment, Maher pointed out Trump’s longstanding efforts to separate himself from Epstein, who died while in federal custody in 2019. He called attention to how Trump often highlights Bill Clinton’s connections to Epstein in a way that fits a well-known pattern.

“This is very Trump,” Maher stated. “Use the Epstein file to distract from the Epstein file.” He even adopted a presidential tone when he added, “We’re not going to rest until we’re in the middle of this!”

Towards the end of the episode, Maher switched gears in his “New Rules” segment. He cautioned Democrats that their growing affection for socialism could backfire. He cited New York Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani, who identifies as a democratic socialist, and urged the party to move towards the center instead of “doubling down” on policies that could alienate moderate voters. This was a familiar Maher call for practicality over ideological purity, and it felt particularly relevant for 2025. The clip is available for viewing above.