Bill Maher Praises Donald Trump's Border Shutdown

Bill Maher, one of President Donald Trump's most persistent critics in comedy, said on the latest episode of his Club Random podcast that Trump deserves credit for shutting down the southern border, even as he warned that the wider immigration crackdown threatens what he called America's "secret sauce."

The concession came in an exchange with psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen, the brain-imaging specialist and founder of Amen Clinics. Amen had been describing how his father, a Lebanese immigrant, built a grocery business in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and rose to lead a multibillion-dollar company.

"This is what is awesome about America, that we are flirting with ruining," Maher said. "We attract the best, smartest, most ambitious people from everywhere. This was always our secret sauce."

Maher Gives Trump 'Credit' on Border Closure

Maher then began to fault the administration, asking, "And you know who is messing with this?" before adding, "You know, we did need to close the border, but..." Amen cut in to ask whether Trump was reacting to "the insanity of open borders."

"Yes, totally. He's closing the border to something we needed to do. I totally give him credit for that," Maher replied.

Neither man named Trump in the exchange, but the reference tracks with Maher's past commentary on the president's border policy.

Maher did not linger on the point, returning instead to his guest's family story. "People like your father always, you know, that is why I still believe in this country so much," he said.

The remarks are a departure from the tone Maher struck on his own HBO show in January, when he predicted Republicans would suffer in the midterms over immigration enforcement. Showing images of ICE operations, he said, "This is not what people voted for," during the Jan. 23 broadcast of Real Time.

Border Encounters Fell to Lowest Level Since 1970

Government data backs up the premise that crossings collapsed after Trump took office. U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 237,565 Southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year 2025, which the Department of Homeland Security called the lowest annual total since 1970. Nearly three quarters of those encounters occurred in the final months of the Biden administration.

Monthly figures tell the same story. CBP's fiscal 2025 statistics show Border Patrol apprehensions at the Southwest border dropped from 29,105 in January 2025 to 8,349 in February, the first full month of Trump's second term, and stayed below 10,000 every month through the end of fiscal year 2025 in September, with July 2025 marking the low point at 4,592. A Pew Research Center analysis published in February found monthly totals remained below 10,000 through December 2025, the lowest levels in more than 25 years of available monthly data and far below the December 2023 peak of 249,740 apprehensions.

The 'Secret Sauce' Argument

Maher's broader worry, that the United States is "flirting with ruining" its appeal to talented immigrants, also has a data backdrop. A June 2026 policy brief from the National Foundation for American Policy found that immigrants founded or cofounded 59 percent, or 455 of 775, of privately held U.S. startups valued at $1 billion or more. The share rises to roughly two thirds when the children of immigrants are included.

Nearly a quarter of all 775 billion-dollar companies in the study have a founder who first came to the United States as an international student, the report found. Among the 15 immigrants NFAP identified as founders of two or more billion-dollar companies is Noubar Afeyan, the Moderna cofounder who, like Amen's father, was born in Lebanon.

Amen described that path on the podcast. "He ended up being the chairman of the board of Unified Grocers, which is a $4 billion company. I'm very proud of him," he said. Maher called it "an immigrant story in one lifetime," adding, "That's America."

Whether the current crackdown is deterring such immigrants is harder to measure. NAFSA, the association of international educators, projected on Aug. 11 a 9.5 percent drop in international student enrollment this fall, or up to 111,000 fewer students, costing local economies an estimated $3.4 billion. The group cited several factors behind the decline, including a 21 percent drop in international doctoral-student applications tied to federal research-funding uncertainty, along with a December 2025 executive order restricting visas for nationals of 39 countries and consular processing backlogs — not border enforcement itself.

The administration has argued its policies protect American workers. A $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions took effect Sept. 21, 2025, and the March 2026 H-1B cap registration window is the first lottery it affects, though federal guidance exempts most F-1 students changing status from within the United States, according to an analysis by the law firm BakerHostetler.

What Maher Said About Polarization

Maher framed the exchange within a longer complaint about partisan hatred. "The two halves hate each other so much that nothing really can get done when you're in that place," he said later in the episode, adding that his theme over "the last five years" has been that he is "just over the hate."

Trump's standing with the public remains weak. PolitiKool's polling average puts the president's approval at 38.8 percent and disapproval at 58.2 percent as of Sept. 22.

Maher, who is 70, also told Amen that people he knows from France and Canada came to the United States because "there's just a sense here that you can reinvent yourself and go as high as you want."

"The sky's the limit," he said.