A federal judge sided with Bill Maher and HBO in rejecting right-wing activist Laura Loomer‘s defamation lawsuit against the Real Time host, concluding that she had not met the threshold for proving that he acted with actual malice.
Loomer sued in October 2024 after Maher, on one of his shows, quipped that he thought she was maybe “in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she’s very close to Trump. She’s 31, looks like his type.”
Maher added: “We did an editorial here a few years ago … it was basically, who’s Trump f*cking? Because I said, you know, it’s not nobody. He’s been a dog for too long, and it’s not Melania. I think we may have our answer this week. I think it might be Laura Loomer.”
U.S. District Judge James Moody wrote that the comments were “made by a comedian, Maher, about a public figure, Loomer, during a time when the environment was rife with jokes and speculation about Loomer’s relationship with President Trump. Because no reasonable person would take the episode as Maher commenting on facts and because Plaintiff has not proved Defendants acted with actual malice, or that she suffered damages, Defendants are entitled to summary judgment in their favor.”
Read the judge’s decision in Laura Loomer’s defamation lawsuit against Bill Maher.
Loomer had sought more than $150 million in damages.
The judge cited ample chatter and speculation about the Loomer-Trump relationship before Maher made the comment on his September 13, 2024, episode.
In a deposition, the judge noted that Maher said: “I made a joke. I made a joke based on their sudden closeness in the news that week. I could have shown a video of them together and all the places they were together and all the things that were going on, the ‘I love you’ the ‘I love you,’ the blowing of the kisses, ‘you’re very special,’ all this stuff, and then just said, ‘Hey, get a room.’ It’s just — this is just comedy. … These are jokes.”
The judge wrote, “The delivery of the episode, by a well-known comedian, in the context of a late-night comedy television series centered around jokes, signaled to viewers that this was not a factual statement about Loomer or concerning Loomer.”
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In finding that there was no evidence to support malice on Maher’s part, the judge noted that the host testified that “he had no reason to doubt” a Trump-Loomer affair, “considering President Trump’s reported prior alleged affairs, the reported closeness between President Trump and plaintiff and plaintiff’s own commentary about President Trump.”
The judge also rejected Loomer’s claim for damages, writing that she “has not identified a single individual who believed that she was sleeping with President Trump because of the episode or a single relationship that was damaged as a result of the episode.”
Loomer called the judge’s ruling an “attack on women and the truth” and suggested that she would appeal.
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She wrote on X, “It is beyond the pale for any judge to say that a woman can be accused of having sex with a man and have it be brushed off as ‘a joke’ just because she proclaimed a platonic love for their politics and leadership style. The ruling is totally dishonest and misogynistic. I am a professional woman who simply traveled as a guest to the Presidential debate, and everyone knows Bill Maher was a strong supporter of Kamala Harris and rabidly anti-Trump at the time he made these defamatory comments about me. This wasn’t a joke. He was trying to further the election of Kamala Harris and smear my reputation when I have always been highly professional in my support of President Trump.”
An HBO spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.