President Donald Trump hit back at Barack Obama after the former president mocked White House renovations as resembling a Cheesecake Factory. Trump turned a weekend campaign joke into a two-stage rebuttal that stretched from Maryland to Mississippi.
Donald Trump reacts after Barack Obama’s Cheesecake Factory comment
Trump opened his counterattack on Monday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, telling reporters that Obama “doesn’t understand it because he’s not a smart guy.” He argued that “the way he ran the country, only a stupid person would run the country like that.”
The president then defended his renovation record in practical terms. He said the White House “is a symbol of America, and it has to be maintained properly,” citing exterior plaster that “can’t be falling off the walls” and window ornaments that shouldn’t be intact on one side and missing on the other. “It’s not about money. It’s about seeing,” Trump said.
He added that “guys like Obama don’t see it. He doesn’t see dirt, he doesn’t see filth, he doesn’t see broken ornaments on a building.”
Later, at a Monday night rally in Corinth, Miss., Trump returned to the subject and openly mocked Obama’s phrasing. He told supporters Obama “spends a lot of his time fixing up the White House.”
Then quoted the line back: “‘He said, ‘This isn’t a Cheesecake Factory.’ Can you believe it? Which is a very successful company. He doesn’t like successful companies.'”
Barack Obama‘s original comment was made on Saturday during a campaign stop in Cleveland, where he said the White House looks “like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory; it’s just gold everywhere.”
He also joked that Trump “seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV.” Moreover, Trump closed his argument by linking the Cheesecake Factory comparison to Obama’s overall performance: “For you to say it was a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president.”
