Bill Maher admits he enjoys watching Trump get combative with journalists in tense interviews

Talk show host Bill Maher praised President Donald Trump on Monday’s episode of "Club Random," saying he finds joy in seeing him confront journalists in ways he would not.

Maher has a long, chequered history with Trump, something he joked about when he attended a dinner at the White House and brought a list of insults the president has directed at him over the years. But while Maher is not shy about criticizing the president, he specifically praised him for his unique penchant for directly clashing with journalists, saying that contentious feeling toward the press is something he can relate to.

"And it's funny, you know, you want to say it back to the media and I won't about, anything, because you just don't want to pick that fight with them," Maher said as he spoke to his guest, actor Kevin Spacey. "But sometimes when I see Trump just speak his complete internal monologue without, doing things that, it's just like – he will say something, and the one I'm thinking of is like, I've wanted to say that."

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Maher recalled a specific example, "When somebody pissed him off in an interview, he just went, 'You're a terrible person!’"

"And it's like, I can't deny... there's a moment where I would have — that's exactly what I was thinking," Maher said, before listing a series of purported examples like, "'You're a terrible person,' ‘It's not a sincere question,’ ‘It's a gotcha thing,’ ‘It's a virtue-signaling thing,’ ‘You don't believe it yourself.’ ‘But I don’t.’"

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"Not our president," Maher said, appearing to praise Trump for not kowtowing to journalists.

Maher accepted the Mark Twain award at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, in what was yet another example of their relationship that involves both praise and insults.

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Maher and impressionist Matt Friend did a bit where Friend impersonated Trump, saying, "Why are we giving this low-ratings lightweight jerk the Mark Twain Award," The Washington Post reported.

Friend, depicting Trump, insisted he was more deserving of the award, and even broke into the Trump dance.

Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.