"My Dinner with Adolf" – Larry David Pokes Fun at Trump Meeting

DER SPIEGEL "My Dinner with Adolf" – Larry David Pokes Fun at Trump Meeting 1 hour • 2 minutes read With series like "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," he became one of the most successful US comedians. Now Larry David jokes in the "New York Times" about colleague Bill Maher and his new enthusiasm for Donald Trump. That even ideologically far-right politicians can be "quite nice" in personal conversation isn't exactly a new discovery. And yet, time and again, otherwise intelligent people are amazed to discover that even authoritarian rulers are capable of wit and compliments when they meet them away from the cameras – for example, at a candlelit dinner. The latest victim of this misunderstanding: US comedian Bill Maher, 69, actually an ardent Trump hater and critic of the Republican Party. But after being invited to dinner with the president at the end of March, he returned reformed: "Benevolent," Maher said on his show "Real Time," much more reflective than expected. "Everything I ever disliked about him was—I swear to God—absent." A critic, spontaneously converted. The "Private Hitler" Maher's "MAGA" conversion surprised not only his audience, but also his colleague Larry David, 77, comedy legend and creator of the series "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He poured his response into a satirical essay published Monday in the "New York Times." The title: "My Dinner with Adolf." In it, a first-person narrator describes how, once a vocal critic, he was suddenly invited to dinner by the Führer in 1939. He goes, of course, because "he has come to the conclusion that hatred gets us nowhere." Over the course of dinner, the narrator is ultimately captivated by Hitler's charisma, by this "private Hitler," who is so authentic, curious, and humorous. At the end, he bids farewell with a Hitler salute and a Maher-like insight: "Even if we disagree on many issues, that doesn't mean we have to hate each other." David's text is a provocation, but not his first Trump parody for the "New York Times." In 2019, he wrote down a fictitious late-night conversation between the president and his wife, Melania; three years earlier, he invented a transcript of a meeting of Trump's entourage with Russian agents. Can Maher laugh at the version of the Trump essay dedicated to him? So far, he hasn't publicly responded to Larry David's text. But perhaps some conversations are better had over dinner.<