MENTAL GYMNASTICS

Bill Maher Defends Trump’s Pet Project: ‘Call Me Crazy’

“First of all, lots of people have changed the White House...” the host remarked.

Bill Maher wants people to lay off Donald Trump over his White House ballroom.

“Don’t let people control your mind completely,” Maher said Monday on his Club Random podcast with guest Lara Trump. The expensive project is “no big deal,” Maher insisted, despite the media’s coverage. “Ballrooms—no—does not rise to the light. It is not on the ‘I give a s--t list,’” he said. Not only are there “bigger fish to fry” when it comes to Trump, but having a ballroom may actually be a good idea, he explained.

“First of all, lots of people have changed the White House. Second of all, it’s just a f---ing building,” said Maher, 69. “Something they never put in the left press: We are America. They shouldn’t be having state dinners under a tent.”

A White House press release from July estimated the final ballroom would be roughly 90,000 square feet with seating for 650.

“America is a pretty big country,” Maher said, “We’re kind of a successful band. I think we should have, when we have state dinners and s--t, I don’t think it should be on the grass. I do think there should be a floor. Call me crazy. But again, don’t give a s--t.”

Trump, 79, demolished the White House’s East Wing in October to prep for the $350 million ballroom’s construction—and then later admitted he didn’t actually need to.

“It was a poor, sad sight, and I could’ve built the ballroom around it,” Trump told Fox News this month, but in his opinion, the Wing “looked like hell.” He also said he didn’t want to “sacrifice a great ballroom for an OK ballroom by leaving it right smack in the middle,” as he praised his plan to build “one of the greatest ballrooms in the world.”

He added at the time, “By the way, zero money spent by the government. Zero.” Many of the companies contributing to the ballroom’s cost hold significant government contracts. According to the nonprofit Public Citizen’s report, two-thirds of the 24 known corporate donors received $279 billion in federal contracts over five years. Most of those also face past or ongoing federal legal action. Maher said he doesn’t bat an eye at the project’s cost or where the money came from.

“The amount of money—it’s not even public money. Even if it was, you couldn’t find it in a rounding era,” he said.

On Trump specifically, he added, “There are things he does that I am very, very engaged with that are important. And there are things that—I’ve told my audience, treat it like a cloud. Let it just pass, because it doesn’t matter. And you can’t get upset about everything. I said before, he won the last time. I’m not gonna let him get my mind this time.”

Eboni Boykin-PattersonEntertainment Reporter

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