Obama on Trump White House: ‘Like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory’

Former President Barack Obama poked fun at President Trump’s various Washington, D.C.-area renovation projects during a campaign stop in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was stumping for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Senate candidate Sherrod Brown.

In his speech, Obama zeroed in on the changes President Trump has made to the White House during his second term, saying he believes Trump is more focused on renovating the White House than on the issues voters care about.

“He seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV,” Obama said of Trump’s over $900 million worth of White House construction efforts. “What’s with the gold? … He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

This isn’t the first time Obama has ribbed Trump for his gold-heavy redecoration of the White House, previously doing so on Larry David’s HBO Max show “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.”

The former president’s attacks did not stop with the White House. Obama went on to blast Trump’s other renovation projects as well.

The Democrat singled out Trump’s original 2016 message to “drain the swamp,” a call to shake up the Washington establishment, jokingly drawing comparisons between the adage and his attempted renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

After the White House unveiled the newly-renovated pool in June, onlookers began to spot a growth of green algae in the water and the peeling of newly installed “American flag blue” base paint. After months of renovations and a heated legal battle surrounding vandalism allegations, Trump said Friday the pool is 85 percent done with the refilling process.

“Remember that whole thing about drain the swamp? The only thing that got drained was the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall after some no-bid contract got it all messed up,” Obama said.