Sean JamesMay 11th, 2026, 10:45 am

Bill Maher and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) took turns defending the White House ballroom that President Donald Trump is building, with Maher saying it doesn’t make sense to get angry about it when the project will cost the equivalent of “couch money” to taxpayers.

The comic and senator talked about the ballroom at the start of Monday’s latest episode of Club Random.

“This thing won’t even be finished by the time he’s done!” Fetterman said. He then quipped Trump wasn’t building a “Dave and Buster[s],” which Maher got a kick out of.

“Meanwhile the money is like one angstrom unit of a percentage point of what our budget is. So it doesn’t matter anyway,” Maher said. “It’s couch money.”

He added the price tag for the ballroom doesn’t sound outlandish to him. “$330 million is about what a ballroom costs,” Maher said. That was right after Fetterman said he spent $330 million on his campaign in 2022 — and that campaigns have only gotten more expensive.

“The ballroom has a purpose, a lot of senators you work with do not,” Maher said.

The senator said the pushback against the ballroom ultimately boiled down to “TDS” — or Trump Derangement Syndrome — infecting the Democratic Party.

“If he came out [in favor] for ice cream and lazy Sundays, we would f*ckin’ hate it,” Fetterman said.

Trump last week said the ballroom would cost less than $400 million, and he has touted in the past it will be funded by donations from companies like Meta and Apple.

Some Republicans proposed last week adding $1 billion for security enhancements to the budget, but that dough hasn’t been approved yet. Trump has pushed for the ballroom to get finished, saying it is necessary following the third assassination attempt against him last month at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Watch above via YouTube.

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