Sen. John Fetterman clapped back at Larry David after the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator said a White House UFC event left him ashamed of his country.
The Pennsylvania Democrat mocked David’s outrage when TMZ’s Jacob Wasserman asked how he would answer the comedian’s complaint that the fights on the White House lawn were “embarrassing.”
“I’d say lighten up, Francis,” Fetterman replied.
The line came from “Stripes,” the 1981 comedy where Warren Oates’ Sgt. Hulka tells Conrad Dunn’s Francis “Psycho” Soyer to “lighten up.”
😬 John Fetterman rips Larry David for being embarrassed by White House UFC event.
🎥: @jacob_wass pic.twitter.com/VgEWirsU36
— TMZ (@TMZ) June 24, 2026
David, 78, had ripped the “UFC Freedom 250” event during an interview with Variety after the fights were staged at the White House earlier this month on President Trump’s birthday.
“It was a travesty,” David told the outlet, referring to Trump’s UFC fight. “What else can you say about it?”
The HBO comic pushed the criticism from politics into patriotism. “It was embarrassing,” he continued. “I was embarrassed to be an American.”
#LarryDavid says President Donald Trump's UFC fight at the White House made him "embarrassed to be an American." pic.twitter.com/zFlCfeOwyG
— Variety (@Variety) June 24, 2026
Fetterman did not have much patience for that argument.
“I’m proud to be American, and if you are embarrassed or whatever because of a UFC thing, get over yourself dude,” he said, before walking into an elevator.
“Like seriously, get over yourself dude,” the Pennsylvania senator repeated.
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Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly piled on during Wednesday’s edition of her podcast, saying she enjoys David’s work but not his politics.
“Like speaking of DEI and wokeness, Larry David, whose show I enjoy – I think Curb Your Enthusiasm is so clever and very funny – but I just wish he would stop with the political, over-the-top stuff,” she commented prior to showing the clip.
Kelly then cast David as culturally removed from the fans he was mocking.
“There’s no question Larry lives in either Beverly Hills or Bel Air and is living it up big,” Kelly remarked.
Kelly argued that the Brooklyn-born comedian had become detached enough to ‘turn[ing] his nose up’ at what she viewed as an unmistakably American sport.
“I don’t like UFC because I don’t like violence. I don’t like boxing. I don’t like any violence – I can’t handle it,” she added.
“It’s not a class thing like it clearly is with Larry David.”
The anti-UFC blast landed during promotion for David’s new HBO project, “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” which satirizes major moments in American history through sketch comedy.
Debuting Friday, June 26, the series brings in Jerry Seinfeld, Vince Vaughn, Rita Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Barack Obama.
Higher Ground, Obama’s production company, is behind the series, and David praised Obama to Variety as “really good at ad-libbing.”
HBO Max teased the pairing on X with Obama turning his résumé of world crises into a setup for a Larry David joke.
“I have sat across the table from some of the world’s most difficult leaders and wrestled with some of the globe’s most intractable problems,” Obama teed up in the video.
Nothing could've prepared President Obama for this…
Life, Larry and The Pursuit of Unhappiness premieres June 26 on HBO Max. #LarryDavid #BarackObama pic.twitter.com/v2IOcUJGRH
— HBO Max (@hbomax) May 7, 2026
“Nothing has prepared me for working with Larry David. I’m just a producer on this show so I don’t have to deal with him day-to-day, but, still, it’s a lot.”
David then entered the clip with a presidential nickname. “Hey, 44!” David says in the clip. “Yeah?” Obama replies.
“Can I put you down as my emergency contact?” David questions. “Why would you do that?” Obama asks back.
“Well, because if they see your name, they’ll be more inclined to help,” David says back.
The bit ends with Obama refusing after noting David’s habit of calling 911 for non-emergencies, prompting David to say he will ask Michelle Obama instead.
“Good luck with that,” Obama dryly adds.
David’s public contempt for Trump has long bled into his comedy and his off-screen feuds.
Last year, David used a New York Times guest essay titled “My Dinner with Adolf” to satirize comedian Bill Maher’s White House dinner with Trump, drawing criticism that the piece was “insulting” to Holocaust victims.
Maher later said the essay helped end their friendship. “Larry David certainly is not really my friend anymore,” he told The Free Press’ Maya Sulkin in an interview last year.
When Sulkin asked whether he had spoken with David since the op-ed, Maher said he had already answered on television.
“No, I said my piece on my last show … I put him in my last editorial right before Thanksgiving, our last show,” Maher answered.
Maher had already taken the feud to “Real Time,” using his Nov. 21 HBO episode to needle David over his annual refusal to appear on the show. “Yeah, I get that now,” Maher noted.
Maher made the dig after attacking critics of his dinner with Trump.
“This is so childish, so purely emotional — the people who got all butthurt because I had dinner with [Trump] — you know, because he’s Hitler,” he continued.
“Except he’s not. So unhelpful and dumb. Trump is the most supportive president Israel and the Jews ever had!”
His politics also appear to have complicated another “Curb” relationship.
Cheryl Hines, David’s longtime TV wife on “Curb,” has said they have not spoken since the 2024 finale and suggested Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role in the Trump administration may be why.
“I think he’s mad … because Bobby’s in the administration,” Hines said during an interview with NewsNation in late 2025.
Still, Hines said she did not expect some dramatic personal blowup if they crossed paths.
“I actually think I would be fine talking to Larry,” Hines remarked. “Somebody asked me, ‘What would happen if you walked into a restaurant and he was there?’ I would be happy to see him and I’d say hi and we’d talk for a second.”
After nearly a quarter-century working with David, Hines downplayed the idea that they had been inseparable off set.
“It’s not like Larry and I used to play pickleball and we don’t now. You know what I mean?” she asked.
“I would really see him at work or things like that once in a while, have lunch, but I haven’t really been around in L.A. the same time he has, so I don’t know,” she noted.
“I’m sure things would be fine with us. And at the same time, I’m sure he’s not happy about politics.”
Hines also said Kennedy’s administration role had upset some people around her, though she denied any dramatic friendship rupture.
“Yes, I do have a few friends that I know are just very upset by even Bobby being in the administration,” she revealed.
“It’s very upsetting to them, and I understand that, I respect it. I haven’t had any falling outs. I haven’t had a moment of somebody storming out the door.”