When Bill Maher starts praising Donald Trump’s foreign policy, you know something significant has shifted in America’s political landscape. The HBO host’s recent candid assessment of Trump’s Middle East approach represents more than just grudging acknowledgment—it’s a devastating indictment of decades of failed State Department orthodoxy that prioritized globalist consensus over American interests.
“Trump stood with Israel more than other administrations, and that worked,” Maher declared, delivering a reality check that should resonate far beyond his liberal audience. His admission cuts through years of diplomatic double-talk to acknowledge what constitutional conservatives have long understood: America succeeds when it backs democratic allies who share our founding principles.
Maher’s analysis exposes the fundamental flaw in traditional Washington foreign policy thinking. For decades, career diplomats insisted that “balanced” approaches—treating democratic Israel and terrorist-supporting Palestinian entities as moral equals—would somehow produce Middle East peace. Instead, this false equivalency weakened American influence while empowering bad actors who interpreted diplomatic “even-handedness” as weakness.
The Trump administration’s America First approach flipped this failed script. By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and facilitating the Abraham Accords with UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, Trump demonstrated that clarity and strength produce results where decades of State Department consensus-seeking had failed.
“He made deals with actual countries,” Maher observed, highlighting the pragmatic genius of bypassing the Palestinian distraction to work with sovereign nations ready to normalize relations. This wasn’t diplomatic abandonment—it was strategic realism that elevated functional governments over non-state entities with no genuine interest in peace.
The results speak for themselves. Regional powers respected American leadership because they knew where we stood. “Arabs like him and Jews like him,” Maher noted, because both sides understood that America’s word meant something when backed by consistent action rather than diplomatic hedging.
This success reflects constitutional foreign policy principles our founders would recognize. Alexander Hamilton argued that America should form partnerships based on mutual interests and shared values, not abstract ideological commitments to global consensus-building. Trump’s Middle East strategy embodied this wisdom by strengthening ties with democratic allies while refusing to elevate terrorist-supporting entities to equal diplomatic status.
The economic implications were equally significant. The Abraham Accords unleashed billions in trade and investment opportunities, creating prosperity that strengthens regional stability far more effectively than decades of failed peace processes. When democratic nations prosper together, they have genuine incentives to maintain peaceful relations.
Maher’s acknowledgment also reveals growing recognition that America First diplomacy actually enhances our global leadership. By choosing sides based on shared democratic values rather than false moral equivalencies, Trump restored American credibility with allies who had grown tired of watching us treat their enemies as legitimate diplomatic partners.
The broader lesson extends beyond Middle East policy. Whether confronting China’s economic aggression, NATO freeloading, or UN anti-American bias, the Trump approach proved that defending American interests and values commands more international respect than globalist accommodation ever achieved.
This liberal validation of conservative foreign policy principles sets the stage for broader public recognition that putting America first strengthens rather than weakens our global position. Patriots should take encouragement from Maher’s honesty while recognizing the opportunity it creates to expand this conversation to other policy areas where strength outperformed globalist consensus-seeking.
As America faces continued international challenges, Maher’s admission reminds us that constitutional foreign policy—supporting democratic allies, defending American interests, and promoting our founding values—remains the most effective path to lasting peace through strength. Sometimes it takes a liberal comedian to state what conservative patriots have known all along: America succeeds when we act like America.
