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- Bill Maher said he's scared about Trump on a "very personal level."
- He says he thinks Trump will seek revenge against him if he wins in 2024.
- Maher has often mocked Trump on his HBO show 'Prime Time.'
Bill Maher said he's scared of Donald Trump "on a very personal level," and believes the former president will take revenge on him if he wins the election next year.
"I am afraid of Trump on a very personal level because I don't think he likes me. I understand why," the HBO "Real Time" host told Jake Tapper on Tuesday as part of a CNN prime-time special. "And I don't know what he would do in a second term."
Maher, a liberal commentator and comedian, said that after Trump won the 2016 election he was afraid for his own wellbeing. "I thought I could wind up in Guantánamo Bay. I think I still could," he said.
"He's obsessed sometimes. I don't know. He went on a tear for about eight months when he was president. Every time he'd have a rally, I have a list three pages long of the things he's called me," he said of Trump.
Maher has often mocked Trump on his show, and criticised him as president. Trump has responded by aiming a series of insults at the comedian.
In an exchange in June 2022, Maher said on Fox News that prospective Trump 2024 rival Ron DeSantis would make a better president than Trump "because he's not certifiably insane," and Trump responded by calling Maher a "radical left maniac."
In the run up to the 2020 presidential election, Maher successfully predicted that Trump would refuse to concede defeat if he lost. Trump spent months trying to overturn the result of the election, with his false claims of a stolen election inciting his supporters to attack the Capitol in Washington, DD, on January 6, 2021.
Trump has frequently lashed out after being mocked by late night hosts and celebrities.
In his interview Wednesday, Maher said that Biden remained the Democrats' best hope of defeating Trump if he wins the 2024 GOP nomination, despite concerns over the president's age.
"If it's Biden against Trump, Biden will win – that's a good bet," Maher said.
Insider has contacted a Trump spokesperson for comment.