Barack Obama tried to mock President Trump’s White House restoration by saying it looked like “Saddam Hussein opened the Cheesecake Factory.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent answered him Monday from the best possible spot: the door of a Cheesecake Factory, on his way out from lunch.
“Well, two things,” Bessent said. “This is the man who built the museum. It looks like Darth Vader’s tomb.” The Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side, a dark stone tower, has drawn years of ridicule for its design.
Then Bessent defended the restaurant millions of working families actually go to. “I had a great meal, always had a great meal,” he said. “And I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try.”
It was a perfect contrast for the final week of the midterms: an elitist former president sneering at a family restaurant, and a Trump Cabinet secretary happily eating there.
President Trump answered Obama himself at Joint Base Andrews, saying the White House “is a symbol of America” and that the Cheesecake jab “just shows why you are a lousy president.”
