Bill Maher Sounds Off on Trump’s $300 Million White House Renovation: “The Symbolism Is He’s Not Leaving”

Bill Maher has some strong feelings about President Donald Trump’s latest project — and no, it’s not another social media platform. On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the HBO host took aim at Trump’s controversial $300 million renovation of the White House, calling it a troubling sign of permanence.

“The symbolism is he’s not leaving,” Maher told his panel. “Who puts in a giant ballroom if you’re leaving?”

Earlier that day, demolition began on the East Wing — the portion of the White House long used for guest arrivals and official events. Trump has said the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom will be funded privately by himself, several major tech companies, and “many generous patriots.”

While Maher said the move “bothers” him, the conversation heated up when former RNC chairman Michael Steele pushed back on the comedian’s casual take about the White House being “just a building.”

“We watched this week the destruction of a symbol of this government,” Steele lamented. “Of our democracy, of our pluralistic society.”

“You’re talking about the White House?” Maher shot back. “Oh, it’s a building, Mike.”

Steele disagreed. “Okay, Bill, it’s a building maybe to you, but to a lot of Americans it’s not,” he said, calling the White House his “childhood” as someone who grew up in Washington, D.C.

“I’m going to tell you as a young kid growing up in D.C., when my daddy took me by ‘that building,’ it meant something to me as a 10-year-old,” he recalled. “It meant something to me to grow up in a town where everybody in this country came and protested and cried and screamed and laughed… So that building, to me, was my childhood.”

Steele also slammed Trump for tearing down the East Wing “without accountability.” Maher admitted, “He should have gotten the permits, but that’s how he does things… I agree, but it is just a building, first of all.”

The host pointed out that past presidents have also made changes to the White House. “That part of the building wasn’t always there,” Maher noted. “Nixon put in a bowling alley. Obama made the tennis court a basketball court. I can’t get this mad about everything, Mike. I just can’t.”

Former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield joined the debate, arguing that the East Wing demolition is part of a larger pattern.

“If this was the only impulsive, reckless, you know, driven by his own desire for self-aggrandizement… then I would give you it’s just a building,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s part of a manner of governing that is tearing at some of the foundations, the institutional foundations in this country. And that’s scary.”

Maher ultimately agreed that Trump’s actions — and attitude — go beyond architecture. “What could President Trump not do?” he asked. “He’s drunk with power.”

You can watch a clip of the panel’s “Overtime” segment above.