Obama Says Cheesecake Factory Was His Jam as Restaurant Joke Turns Into Proxy Fight
A Cleveland punchline about gold decor goes viral
On Oct. 24, former President Barack Obama campaigned in Cleveland for Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown and gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and mocked President Donald Trump's White House renovations. He listed the ballroom project, Rose Garden work and South Lawn helipad, then asked what was behind all the gold. His punchline, that Trump had the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory, drew laughter and quickly spread online, setting off days of partisan sparring.
Bessent orders lunch and fires back at elitism charge
Obama says family dinners made the chain a decade-long favorite
On Oct. 28, Obama answered at a rally outside Atlanta for Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, saying he had lived at places like Chuck E. Cheese, California Pizza Kitchen and The Cheesecake Factory when his daughters were young. That was his jam for about a decade, he said. He argued the joke was about gilded decor and unanswered allegations about corruption and tariff-driven costs, not contempt for the restaurant or its customers.
