Barack Obama came to Detroit on Saturday to rally votes for Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee. He decided the best way to do that was to make fun of a restaurant chain.
"What's up with the gold?" Obama asked the crowd at Cass Technical High School. "I mean, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory."
He was just getting going. "I don't know if you've noticed, but he is very focused on home renovation. He should be on HGTV," Obama said. "It's just gold everywhere. He is clearly not focused on lowering prices for you."
A man with an $11.75 million, 29-acre estate on Martha's Vineyard came to Detroit to tell working families he's worried about their grocery bills. His punchline was the restaurant where a lot of those families take the kids for birthdays.
The Trump administration noticed.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent walked into a Cheesecake Factory in Washington and sat down for lunch.
"I had a great meal, always have a great meal," Bessent told reporters afterward, "and I would just tell the Martha's Vineyard set to give it a try."
He had a menu recommendation, too. "I recommend the Cheeseburger Spring Rolls," he posted on X.
Bessent also had something to say about Obama's own taste in architecture. "This is the man who built the museum [that] looks like Darth Vader's tomb," he said, referring to the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The concrete tower's price tag has climbed past $800 million.
President Trump answered Obama himself on his way to a rally in Mississippi.
"I've taken care of the White House," he said. "I fixed it with the finest artisans in the world. We reskinned it; it was in horrible shape."
He said he knew why Obama never noticed. "Guys like Obama, they would pass the front door, they'd see the broken masonry," Trump said. "He doesn't notice dirt and filth that hadn't been cleaned."
Then he summed it up. "For you to say it's a Cheesecake Factory … that just shows why you were a lousy president."
At the rally that night, Trump went back to it. "He said, 'This isn't a Cheesecake Factory.' Can you believe it?" Trump told the crowd. The chain, he pointed out, is "a very successful company." Then he added, "He doesn't like successful companies."
The White House piled on online, posting a mock Cheesecake Factory menu with Trump's accomplishments listed where the food should be.
Republican strategist Matt Whitlock called the joke what it was: classic Obama snobbery.
Obama was in Michigan to save El-Sayed's campaign against Republican Mike Rogers. Michigan is full of autoworkers, union families, and suburban parents, and for a lot of them a night at the Cheesecake Factory is a treat. Rogers now has the former president on tape making fun of it.
The election is November 3. On Monday afternoon, the Treasury secretary was having lunch at a Cheesecake Factory in Washington.