U.S. President Donald Trump with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the White House Oval Office on May 6, 2025 (The White House/Flickr)
President Donald Trump — apparently still smarting from former President Barack Obama saying his White House renovations make the historic building look like a Cheesecake Factory via Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — has put Cheesecake Factory on the White House menu for the midterms party.
"The White House midterm election watch party will be fueled by at least one big order from the Cheesecake Factory, according to a post on X from Kaelan Dorr, the White House’s head of digital strategy," reported The Wall Street Journal's Annie Linskey on Tuesday.
Linskey added, "“WH eating good on a big day,” Dorr posted, along with a photo of a Cheesecake Factory takeout bag. A White House official confirmed that the order is, indeed, for the White House gathering."
She continued, "The takeout order is a callback to a recent comment from former President Barack Obama on the campaign trail, when he said that President Trump’s golden flourishes and additions to the White House make the place look like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”"
Trump responded to Obama'a initial joke, that the White House under Trump looked like "Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," with insults, describing it as a "successful company" and insisting that prior to his second term the White House had been falling apart and needed Trump's renovations so it could be "clean, pristine, beautiful."
Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte responded to the incident by describing it as “the latest in a series of MAGA’s long list of kitsch-related tantrums, which have seen them feign enthusiasm for middlebrow corporate products as evidence of their identity as 'real' Americans, unlike those snooty Democrats with their fancy mustards.”
Anita Chabria of the Los Angeles Times characterized Trump's reaction to the joke as demonstrating his overall weakness as a president. She noted that if he had more gravitas and substantive achievement as a president, he would not feel as weak and therefore vulnerable to a jab like one which Obama sent in his direction.
“Dozens and dozens of Trump minions parroted the same line for days — how dare Obama mock such a beloved American eatery?" Chabria wrote. "How out of touch. How tan-suit, Martha’s Vineyard of him. Trump brought it up at multiple rallies. The official White House social media account posted about it. It was all over the right-wing ecosphere for days.”
Chabria added that this is ironic given Trump's own elitist proclivities, such as when he acknowledged most Americans cannot afford to go to his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“You'll be my guest at Mar-a-Lago,” he said. “The problem is that for $5,000, the most you'll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert. ... I'm not even sure you could buy that. No, don't go there. That's not a good place if you're price conscious.”