At a Michigan campaign rally for Democrats on October 26, Barack Obama compared Trump's White House renovations to Saddam Hussein opening a Cheesecake Factory. Conservative commentators and Fox News pushed back, and Donald Trump said the line shows why Obama was a lousy president; Bessent tweeted a spring rolls recommendation. The discussion has since turned on whether the Cheesecake Factory is blue-collar or fancy, with conservative commentators split on the question. Obama said the administration mobilized a whole-of-government response to the joke but was not mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison. He also campaigned in Ohio for Democrats Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown. Whether the remark was elitist or simply a good joke remains contested.