Vice President JD Vance hit back at Barack Obama on Thursday after the former president compared the Trump White House’s appearance to a Cheesecake Factory run by Saddam Hussein.
“I didn’t fully get it. I kind of like the Cheesecake Factory,” Vance said during a Texas town hall hosted by Fox News’ Jesse Watters.
Vance argued that Obama’s joke showed how the former president “just can’t help himself from being super elitist,” even when he is not trying to be.
“Remember, this is the guy who said that people who wanted good jobs were ‘clinging to their guns and their religion,’ as if God and the Second Amendment were something to be ashamed of,” Vance said.
In seeking to ridicule President Trump, Vance continued, Obama “drove home how divorced the Democrats are from actual Americans.”
Obama made the remark Saturday while campaigning for Democrats in Ohio, where he accused Trump of focusing more on White House renovations than on helping Americans.
“I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations,” Obama said. “He should be on HGTV.”
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“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
Watters pointed out that Obama appeared to soften his criticism during a rally in Atlanta on Wednesday. There, Obama said that, as “the father of two daughters,” the Cheesecake Factory had been “my jam for about a decade.”
“See, that’s exactly the point, though … he realized, ‘Oh, a lot of the people we want to vote for us actually like the Cheesecake Factory,’” Vance said.
The vice president added that the restaurant was “the weirdest restaurant to hate on.”
“The menu is like 75 pages long, so there’s something for everybody,” he joked.
“I just don’t understand. Like, there are restaurants I can imagine beating up on—not the Cheesecake Factory,” Vance said. “Leave us alone, Barack!”
Watters joked that Fox News’ next town hall would take place inside a Cheesecake Factory.
