Obama's Cheesecake Factory jibe over Trump's White House renovations fuels midterm row

The remark and the White House reply

On Saturday, 24 October, Barack Obama mocked the gilded makeover Donald Trump has given the Oval Office and the White House, saying it looked as though Saddam Hussein had opened a Cheesecake Factory. Obama's jab was blunt:

“He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. Just gold everywhere.”

The White House answered by denouncing Obama as an elitist, a move that set off a wider online argument about class in America. Trump has kept defending the renovation work, which is still under way, by citing deteriorated maintenance in the residence and a series of problems he said needed fixing.

Obama doubles down in Atlanta

On Wednesday, 28 October, Obama campaigned in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, in support of Senator Jon Ossoff. He said Trump had not been bothered by being called corrupt or by the Saddam comparison, but had been stung by the restaurant remark. Obama argued that the government had been mobilized to answer the joke rather than to tackle inflation, and he pointed to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the official who had been sent out to respond.

Bessent ate lunch on Monday, 26 October, at a Cheesecake Factory about two blocks from the White House. He ordered a French dip cheeseburger and told reporters afterward:

“I had a great meal, always have a great meal.”

Trump's response and the MAGA pushback

On Monday, 26 October, Trump told reporters that the White House is a symbol of America and that Obama does not notice dirt or broken ornaments on a building. At a Republican rally in Chillicothe, Ohio, he said the residence had cracked stones, faulty joints and worn paint, and that the renovation was not yet finished. At a rally in Texas on Tuesday, 27 October, he joked that Mar-a-Lago, his private club, was not a good place for anyone who is price conscious. Online commentators seized on that line as a contradiction of the elitism charge against Obama.

Republicans and their allies rushed to defend the chain. Florida Representative Randy Fine posted a photo of himself at the restaurant on the same day as Bessent's lunch, and Texas Representative Lance Gooden wrote on X that Obama's dig at the chain should surprise no one. Some critics framed the joke as a sign of Obama's distance from ordinary voters, while others said the outrage itself had been overblown.

A chain caught in the culture war

Rick McCormack, the designer behind the chain's décor of murals, towering columns and oversize amber light fixtures, said he was not upset by the remark. He said he had been surprised when he first heard it and that the whole fight struck him as silly:

“I'm not emotionally attached to the Cheesecake Factory design, but don't we have bigger issues in the country?”

The chain began in Beverly Hills, California, in 1978 and now has hundreds of locations across the United States and Canada. Like Cracker Barrel and Starbucks before it, it has landed in the culture wars without seeking a role there. Obama's comments come just over a week before the midterm elections on Tuesday, 3 November, and the feud shows no sign of ending before then.