Vice President JD Vance pushed back Thursday on Barack Obama’s crack that the White House now looks like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” telling a Fox News town hall audience in Texas that the joke exposed exactly the problem with the Democratic Party.
“I didn’t fully get it. I kind of like the Cheesecake Factory,” Vance said at the event, hosted by Jesse Watters.
“I think it’s like a good example of how Obama, without even trying to be, just can’t help himself from being super elitist,” Vance said.
Vance drew a line back to Obama’s 2008 comment about Americans who “cling to their guns and their religion,” saying the former president has a habit of talking down to ordinary voters.
“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.
Vance argued that in trying to mock President Trump, Obama instead “drove home how divorced the Democrats are from actual Americans.”
Obama made the original remark Saturday while campaigning for Democrats in Ohio, where he accused Trump of focusing on redecorating the White House instead of 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. He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
Watters pointed out that Obama appeared to walk the line back somewhat at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia on Wednesday, where he said that as “the father of two daughters,” the Cheesecake Factory was “my jam for about a decade.”
Vance said that reversal proved his point. “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.
He went on to defend the chain restaurant itself, calling it “the weirdest restaurant to hate on.”
“The menu is like 75 pages long, so there’s something for everybody,” Vance said. “I just don’t understand. Like, there are restaurants I can imagine beating up on – not the Cheesecake Factory. Leave us alone, Barack!”
Watters closed the segment by joking that the network’s next town hall should be held inside a Cheesecake Factory.
