Trump charmed Bill Maher. The comedian’s fans don’t find it funny.

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It sounds like a joke that Bill Maher might tell: A comedian, a rapper and the U.S. president sat down at the White House for dinner.

But the actual meeting between Maher and President Donald Trump – brokered by musician Kid Rock last month – was filled with serious conversation about policy, sprinkled with humor and included a personal tour of the White House led by the president, the longtime political comic said on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this weekend.

And the punch line – that Maher found the president “gracious and measured,” and able to laugh at himself – landed flat with many of Maher’s fans, who have spent years watching the comedian pummel Trump with jokes mocking his morals, sanity and intelligence.

Trump gave Maher “a very generous amount of time, and a willingness to listen and accept me as a possible friend,” Maher said on his program, describing their hours-long meeting and meal on March 31. A self-described “old-school liberal,” Maher said he accepted the invitation to join Trump – who sued Maher in 2013 for suggesting that Trump was the son of an orangutan – in a bid for comity, not comedy.

The remarks amounted to a win for the White House: One of the president’s most prominent critics, for a night, spent 13 minutes on a monologue humanizing Trump, rather than caricaturing or attacking him. Maher’s program airs Fridays on HBO and Saturdays on CNN; video clips often receive millions of views on social media. Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire ally, shared a video of Maher’s remarks that had received more than 55 million views as of Monday morning.

Maher’s decision to meet with Trump after trading insults for more than a decade also reflects the broader political recalibration by some liberals in the wake of Trump’s victory last year. California Gov. Gavin Newsom – a possible Democratic candidate for the 2028 presidential nomination – made his own pilgrimage to Maher’s show last month, where the governor decried the Democrats’ “toxic” brand and defended his decision to court conservatives on his podcast.

Although Maher said he wanted his White House visit to build bridges, his monologue may have burned some. Social media forums devoted to Maher’s program were filled with laments, such as a Reddit thread with the title “I think I’m out,” as fans said they planned to stop watching his program. Others asked why Maher was prioritizing a cordial dinner at the White House rather than the president’s push for mass deportations, flirtation with an unconstitutional third term and other initiatives that have alarmed liberal lawmakers, prompted lawsuits and led Maher himself to warn that the Constitution is imperiled.

“I didn’t think Bill was this naive,” one longtime fan posted to Reddit.

Courtney Masella-O’Brien, a lawyer in Oakland, California, told The Washington Post that she had watched Maher for years but had grown frustrated with his lack of “empathy” for people affected by Trump’s policies, such as laid-off federal workers and people who depend on the social safety net. She also said that Maher’s revelation – that Trump could be privately nice and funny – was a distraction from more pressing issues, such as the administration’s failure to bring back a Maryland man who was wrongly deported.

“Trump’s a human being. We know that. But he doesn’t demonstrate that he’s a very good one most of the time,” Masella-O’Brien said.

Maher’s higher opinion of Trump also comes as many Americans are lowering their own. Trump’s approval rating has fallen from 53 percent in February to 47 percent this month, driven by concerns over his handling of the economy, according to a CBS News-YouGov poll conducted between April 8-11. After initially greeting his election with a muted response, Trump critics organized nationwide demonstrations against the president earlier this month.

Maher acknowledged that his comments would unsettle his viewers, musing in his monologue about “liberal sphincters” tightening as he began to praise the president’s behavior. In his remarks, Maher said that Trump sought out his opinion on nuclear talks with Iran, and responded well to Maher’s rebukes and even mockery. The men were joined at dinner by Kid Rock, who had appeared with Trump at an Oval Office event earlier in the day, and Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a longtime Trump ally.

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The comedian also vowed to remain critical of Trump for “disappearing people, ruling by decree, threatening judges, gutting the government with glee.”

But the president that the public sees, Maher added, was a kind of performance.

“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there,” Maher told his viewers.

“He saw the Trump I know – and the president’s diverse set of friends know,” said Stephen K. Bannon, a longtime Trump adviser and his former chief strategist in the White House. Bannon, who appeared on Maher’s show after the host finished his monologue and jousted with Maher over Trump’s policies, added that the comedian’s praise of Trump was an “act of courage for Maher.”

“Ninety percent of his audience I’m sure are seething,” Bannon said.

Josh Rogin, a global security analyst for WP Intelligence, also appeared on Maher’s show and criticized the host for being a “prop” in Trump’s “PR stunt,” drawing a sharp rebuke from Maher. WP Intelligence is an editorially independent arm of The Post that provides analysis for executives.

Maher has said that he does not fear backlash, having made a career of poking both the left and the right. An earlier TV program, “Politically Incorrect,” was canceled in 2002 after Maher made remarks about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that some people considered offensive. HBO began airing “Real Time” the following year, with Maher regularly zinging politicians – and mocking Trump, as the real estate magnate waded into politics. Trump repeatedly hurled insults in return.

But Maher has increasingly blamed Democrats for embracing policies that he said alienated centrists leading up to last year’s GOP sweep of the White House and Congress, and he doubled down in his monologue on Friday. Trump seemed far more approachable than someone like former president Barack Obama, Maher said. “I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days,” the comedian added.

Some of Maher’s viewers praised his willingness to cross party lines. Sharon Bagley, a hairstylist in San Diego and longtime Democrat who said she had watched Maher’s TV programs for two decades and twice attended his stand-up performances, praised the comedian as a truth-teller and said she remained a fan.

“This new hateful rhetoric if you vote for Trump, you’re a demon from hell, that’s just as bad as homophobia,” said Bagley, who added that she’s weighing changing her party registration to independent. “I don’t like Trump. But I can’t hate Bill Maher because he had dinner with him.”

Maher played down his influence, saying that some observers were wrong to assign too much importance to his meeting with the president.

“He’s the most powerful leader in the world,” Maher said in his monologue. “I’m not the leader of anything, except maybe a contingent of centrist-minded people who think there’s got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.”

His audience laughed and applauded.