Bill Maher Wants Trump to “Cut and Run” on Iran War: “It Didn’t Work”
Bill Maher used his Friday monologue to wish President Donald Trump would take the “cut and run” approach on the Iran war—especially after Maher said the initial U.S. strikes didn’t achieve what supporters promised.
“We did it, and it didn’t work,” Maher said on his “Real Time” program, speaking with guest Douglas Murray, a New York Post contributor and advocate for Israel’s war on Gaza and Iran. The timing matters here: Maher made his comments five weeks after he and others backed the initial U.S. strikes, and after he slammed critics who questioned whether the action would accomplish anything.
Maher argued that when this started about six weeks earlier, he and others were “on the same page.” He framed the move as a shot taken “to deal with Iran once and for all,” not only because of concerns about nukes, but because Iran had allegedly indicated it was “weeks away from having 11 bombs.” In his telling, the debate shifted as events unfolded—“Six weeks later, I think we’re at a different place,” he said, pointing to what he described as Murray’s view that the U.S. must “finish this no matter what it takes.”
The comedian also referenced a claim he said was echoed by Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East, who has been accused of profiting from his family’s cryptocurrency company while negotiating with some of its biggest foreign investors on behalf of the U.S. Maher said he initially thought it was “worth taking the shot,” but now believes the U.S. could no longer justify staying locked in.
In a span that veered into the “why now” logic of conflict, Maher said he thought the U.S. could “wipe out the whole leadership at once” and potentially “liberate Iran,” based on what he said was a perception that Iran appeared “ready for an uprising.” Then, he said, Iran showed its defensive capabilities and closed the Strait of Hormuz—something he expressed confusion about last month. “Now what,” he asked on Friday, “do we cut and run or do we stay the course? I hope Donald Trump is the abandoner he’s always been.” He added a comparison that sounded half-joke, half-bitter: “I hope he is the guy who has never not abandoned anything in his life except his love for tariffs.”
There’s also the shifting Maher trail leading up to this moment. After Trump launched the initial U.S. strikes on Iran in February, Maher admitted, “I don’t hate it,” and mocked former Vice President Kamala Harris for speaking out against the strikes. He has also pushed back on critics of an Iran war effort, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, saying, “I’ll be with Trump on this one.” So yes—Friday wasn’t just a new position. It was a reversal, or at least a hard recalibration, with Maher basically saying: the logic that sold the strikes didn’t hold up.
Late in the segment, Maher returned to a familiar line of argument: the U.S. tends to retreat once the costs pile up. “These people who say, ‘You know, we’ll get a reputation for cutting,’” Maher said. “We always cut and run. We did it in Vietnam, we did it in Iraq, we did it to the Kurds, we do it in Afghanistan, we did it in Beirut. That’s us … If you get in with us, we are going to fuck you, OK?” He then wrapped it with a blunt endorsement of whatever the “abandoner” instincts look like in practice: “And that’s Donald Trump. He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”
Somewhere off camera, you could almost picture the studio quiet between takes—then the line lands, and the room moves on. Maher sounded ready to move on too, even if the rest of the country doesn’t quite have that luxury.
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