Washington Examiner columnist Salena Zito slammed former President Barack Obama as “tone deaf” for comparing President Donald Trump’s ballroom renovations to the Cheesecake Factory, arguing that the restaurant is considered a treat for many Americans because of its higher prices.
“It’s just that thing, where you should make a choice, and then you make a choice and you make a dig at the middle of the country,” Zito said on the Hugh Hewitt Show Monday. “Because going to the Cheesecake Factory for Middle America is a little on the expensive side, right? It’s not like going to McDonald’s, that’s something you can do more often.”
The clash began when Obama joked that the White House ballroom looked as if Saddam Hussein designed a Cheesecake Factory during a campaign event in Ohio on Saturday.
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said.
“This is the man who built the museum and it looks like Darth Vader’s tomb,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox Business, referring to the architecture of the Obama Presidential Center.
Bessent dined at a Cheesecake Factory on Monday and reacted to Obama’s comments, “I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try.”
Bessent said he ordered the French Dip Cheeseburger, and went on to say he had a “great meal.”
“Bessent was spot on. He really knew how to take on the issue,” Zito said.
“If you look at President Obama’s library, it is something that, I’m not being insulting, this is something that elitists have complimented and showered praise on its architecture,” Zito said. “Very modern, very gray, very dark, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.”
President Donald Trump also responded to Obama’s joke.
“The White House is a symbol of America, and when it’s dirty, filthy, dirty, and broken, when the windows are cracked, when the exterior monument — they call them monuments on the outside — when they’re good on one side but missing on the other side of a window, people notice that,” he said. “I would try and explain that to a guy like Obama, but he wouldn’t understand. He doesn’t understand. The White House has to be clean, pristine, beautiful,” Trump said Monday during a campaign rally in Mississippi.
Zito defended the public who see the restaurant as a spot for special occasions.
“You walk into the Cheesecake Factory, and it is pretty much Middle America’s cup of tea,” Zito said. “It’s decorated lovely. There’s, you know, ornate, there’s lighting, there’s a menu the size of the old yellow pages, and it’s just like a big treat to go to the Cheesecake Factory.”
TRUMP HITS BACK AT OBAMA’S CHEESECAKE FACTORY JOKE: ‘HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND’
She called out Obama for diminishing the White House by comparing it to the Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant that many people view as a luxury.
“The Cheesecake Factory’s a little more pricier,” Zito said. “So something that is anticipatory, something that people look forward to. And to make fun of it, it just shows how tone deaf that President Obama continues to be.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
