Bill Maher questions $850M Obama Center design and purpose on HBO

During a taping of his HBO show "Real Time" on Friday, comedian and host Bill Maher launched a sharp critique of the newly opened Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, questioning its design, cost, and purpose before turning his ire on his own studio audience.

The exchange occurred during a panel discussion with Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, and journalist Jonathan Martin. Maher displayed an image of the center's main museum building, a 225-foot-tall, near-windowless structure, and compared its architecture to something "aliens built in Dubai." He highlighted the project's reported $850 million price tag, asking why progressives supported such an expenditure. "Couldn't that money be better spent on something else?" Maher asked. "Who's gonna go to this? Why does anybody need a presidential library? These monuments to some... ego, out of office."

Maher then polled the audience, asking if anyone planned to visit the center located in Chicago's Jackson Park. The question was met with a resounding round of applause, a response Maher immediately dismissed. "Really? You're all a bunch of f---ing liars," he said. "You're not going to the Obama library."