# Post x_428717722583961600

- Post ID: `x_428717722583961600`
- Platform: X (Twitter)
- Posted: 2014-01-30T02:34:04.000Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/x_428717722583961600
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/x_428717722583961600/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/x_428717722583961600.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> Remember when "comedian" Bill Maher openly praised the disgusting terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center-then got canned by ABC?

## Engagement

- Likes: 178
- Reposts: 117
- Replies: 0
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-01-31T23:43:13.336Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-02-28T00:07:59.906Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

A psychologically significant post representing compensatory narcissistic aggression — a public retaliatory strike against Bill Maher approximately 10 months after Trump humiliatingly dropped the $5M orangutan lawsuit. The central factual claim ("openly praised the disgusting terrorists") is demonstrably false: Maher explicitly called the 9/11 hijackers "terrible people" while making a contested philosophical distinction about cowardice versus commitment. Trump's transformation of this statement represents pathological-level distortion defense, inverting the actual semantic content. The post's three-beat sadistic structure — strip professional identity ("comedian") → attach to atrocity → celebrate consequence ("got canned") — culminates in ego-syntonic triumphalism consistent with Kernberg's sadistic component of malignant narcissism. The "Remember when…" construction is a gaslighting device seeding false collective memory, presupposing a distorted event as shared knowledge and bypassing evidentiary scrutiny. Timing (9:34 PM EST), emotional register, scare-quote devaluation, and adversarial specificity strongly support authentic Trump authorship. The surrounding presidential-encouragement retweets suggest this attack served dual purpose: private vendetta fulfillment and public patriotic values-signaling to a growing proto-political audience — an early instance of the 9/11 weaponization pattern that would intensify in later years.

## Analysis: Trump on Bill Maher (2014-01-30)

### Authorship & Timing

**UTC → Local Time:** 2014-01-30T02:34:04Z converts to **9:34 PM EST** (January 29, 2014). In January 2014 Trump maintained his primary residence and office at Trump Tower, Manhattan. This falls squarely within his documented personal evening tweeting window — post-business hours, pre-midnight. The stylistic fingerprints are unmistakable: scare quotes as a devaluation weapon ("comedian"), emotionally loaded adjectives ("disgusting"), the "Remember when…" rhetorical gambit, and the triumphalist coda ("got canned"). No scheduling content, no institutional polish, no complete-sentence professionalism consistent with Scavino-era drafting. **Authentic Trump, high confidence.**

---

### Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Bill Maher 'openly praised the disgusting terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center'" | **Mostly False** | Maher's Sept 17, 2001 Politically Incorrect statement explicitly prefaced his remarks by calling the hijackers 'although terrible people' before arguing they were 'not cowardly' (because they remained on the aircraft). He was making a rhetorical distinction about the meaning of cowardice in geopolitical discourse, not expressing approval or admiration for the attacks. Trump's characterization — 'openly praised' — inverts the actual semantic content of the source statement. |
| "Maher 'got canned by ABC' [for this statement]" | **Half True** | ABC did not renew Politically Incorrect after the 2001-2002 season. The network officially cited declining ratings as the reason; however, the 9/11 controversy caused major advertiser departures (Sears, FedEx) and contributed materially to the show's difficulties. Trump's framing implies direct causal punishment for the specific statement and omits the network's stated rationale. |

Overall Veracity: 35%

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 83%)

### Indicators

- 9:34 PM EST timing — within documented personal evening tweeting window
- Scare quotes around 'comedian' — signature Trump devaluation technique
- 'disgusting terrorists' — emotionally loaded colloquial register, no institutional filter
- 'Remember when...' — first-person adversarial engagement invoking personal grievance history
- Triumphalist coda ('got canned') — personal payoff structure inconsistent with aide drafting

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Defeat (Bill Maher / residual injury from the dropped 2013 orangutan lawsuit — public humiliation of retreating from filed litigation)

**Rage:** Intensity 58% targeting Bill Maher
- Proportionality: 12%

Sentiment: -0.83

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 68%
- Antisocial: 53%
- Paranoid: 55%
- Sadism: 62%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- distortion (pathological)
- devaluation (immature)
- acting out (immature)
- projection (immature)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 36%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Collective false memory construction ('Remember when...') — recruits followers into shared, distorted recollection of a mischaracterized event
- Moral indignation sharing — invites audience to adopt Trump's righteous outrage as their own
- In-group patriotic signaling — 9/11 reference positions Trump and followers on the 'right' side of a moral binary
- Legitimacy arbitration — Trump models who deserves to be called a 'comedian,' implicitly deputizing followers to make the same judgment

## Danger Assessment

**NONE**

### Gaslighting

- 'Remember when...' presupposes a false collective memory as established, uncontested fact — bypasses evidential scrutiny structurally
- Presenting a documented mischaracterization ('openly praised') as if it were uncontested historical record shared by all
- Forecloses rebuttal: you cannot 'remember' correcting something framed as already commonly known
- Invites followers to internalize a distorted mental model of Maher's past statements as their own recollection

## Fact Checks (2)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-02-28._

> Bill Maher 'openly praised the disgusting terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center'

**MOSTLY FALSE**

Maher's Sept 17, 2001 Politically Incorrect statement explicitly prefaced his remarks by calling the hijackers 'although terrible people' before arguing they were 'not cowardly' (because they remained on the aircraft). He was making a rhetorical distinction about the meaning of cowardice in geopolitical discourse, not expressing approval or admiration for the attacks. Trump's characterization — 'openly praised' — inverts the actual semantic content of the source statement.

Sources: https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=102318&page=1; https://wist.info/maher-bill/34391/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher

> Maher 'got canned by ABC' [for this statement]

**HALF TRUE**

ABC did not renew Politically Incorrect after the 2001-2002 season. The network officially cited declining ratings as the reason; however, the 9/11 controversy caused major advertiser departures (Sears, FedEx) and contributed materially to the show's difficulties. Trump's framing implies direct causal punishment for the specific statement and omits the network's stated rationale.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_Incorrect; https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=102318&page=1; https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/bill-maher-jimmy-kimmel-politically-incorrect-suspension-1236376591/

Overall Veracity: 35%

## Tags

- grudge cultivation (87%)
- reality distortion (82%)
- 9/11 weaponization (78%)
- false collective memory (80%)
- ego-syntonic sadism (62%)
- devaluation via scare quotes (75%)
- compensatory aggression (72%)
- adversary targeting (83%)
- proto-political identity construction (55%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**Maher Grudge Resurfaces as Trump Cultivates Messianic Base and Tests Political Identity**

Trump spent the day alternating between nursing a personal grudge against Bill Maher and soaking up flattery from fans urging him to run for president in 2016. The evening kicked off with a burst of attacks on Maher -- including a false claim that the comedian had praised the 9/11 terrorists -- sandwiched between retweets of supporters calling him America's only hope. By afternoon he had pivoted to policy commentary, hitting Obama on climate change and healthcare, and warning Republicans against immigration reform with language that cast immigrants as enemy partisans. It was a prototypical day of grievance, self-promotion, and political positioning from someone clearly building toward something bigger.

Full digest for 2014-01-30: https://trump.fm/date/2014-01-30/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2014, January 30). Remember when "comedian" Bill Maher openly... [Social media post]. X (Twitter). trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/x_428717722583961600
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Remember when "comedian" Bill Maher openly praised the..." X (Twitter), 30 Jan. 2014. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_428717722583961600. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Remember when "comedian" Bill Maher openly praised the...," X (Twitter), January 30, 2014, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_428717722583961600.

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