President Donald Trump lashed out at former President Barack Obama for overlooking “filth” after Obama mocked Trump’s White House renovations as a Cheesecake Factory opened by a dictator.
Trump made the remarks Monday when a reporter traveling with him asked whether he had a further response to Obama’s Cheesecake Factory joke.
“No,” Trump said. He then spent more than three minutes defending the renovations, a reply far longer than the joke that prompted it.
Obama made the joke Saturday at a campaign rally in Ohio, his first appearance for this fall’s midterm elections, NBC News reported.
He was mocking Trump’s ballroom construction and the gold accents added throughout the White House, the network reported.
“I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations,” Obama said. “He should be on HGTV.”
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama continued, invoking the late Iraqi dictator.
“I’ve taken care of the White House,” Trump told reporters. “I fixed it with the finest artisans in the world. We reskinned it. … The exterior plaster was broken, cracked, and the painting was terrible.”
“He doesn’t notice dirt and filth that had been cleaned, where the walls hadn’t been cleaned for years,” Trump said of Obama. “He doesn’t notice areas that haven’t been painted.”
“In my opinion, he’s not smart at all because the way he ran the country, only a stupid person would run the country like that,” Trump said.
“And for you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president,” Trump said into the camera as he wrapped up.
Conservatives had spent the weekend defending the restaurant chain, with commentators accusing Obama of sneering at working-class Americans who eat there, Daily Kos reported.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took up the defense Monday, two days after Obama’s joke, in a video posted on X.
The video shows him walking out of a Cheesecake Factory to a Fox Business reporter and camera waiting outside.
“An interesting lunch choice today,” the reporter told Bessent before asking what he ordered. “Oh, I have what I always had,” Bessent replied, naming “the French dip cheeseburger.”
“This is the man who built the museum and it looks like Darth Vader’s tomb,” Bessent said when asked about Obama’s joke, an apparent reference to the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
“I had a great meal, always have a great meal, and I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try,” Bessent added, referring to the Massachusetts island where the Obamas own a home.
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