Seth Meyers praises 'stand-up comedy Obama' after Cheesecake Factory uproar

Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAYFri, October 30, 2026 at 1:10 PM UTC

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Seth Meyers is all for "stand-up comedy Obama."

During the A Closer Look segment on Thursday's "Late Night," Meyers criticized Republicans for "cosplaying as regular everyday folks" amid conservatives taking issue with former President Barack Obama's Cheesecake Factory jab.

Republicans and conservative media figures took issue with Obama's Oct. 24 rally remarks – in which he joked at an Ohio campaign stop that President Donald Trump's gold White House decor looks like if "Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory" – characterizing the comments as elitist.

Meyers recalled Trump's 2024 campaign stop working a McDonald's shift before pointing to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's recent move, when the former Wall Street hedge fund partner responded to Obama by visiting the restaurant chain.

"Bessent took issue with the comparison to a violent, repressive dictator," the late-night host said of Hussein, before retracting his statement. "Oh. I'm sorry, he took issue with the comparison to Cheesecake Factory and decided to go to one himself."

Bessent told Fox Business, which caught the businessman just as he was walking out, that he ordered what "I always have, the French-dipped cheeseburger." He also took a jab at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, telling the outlet that it looks like "Darth Vader's tomb."

At a Georgia campaign rally on Wednesday, Oct. 28, Obama responded by poking fun at the moment, saying the White House told Bessent to "hold a press conference in front of" the chain.

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"They mobilized a whole-of-government response to that joke, not to inflation, but to that joke," Obama said. "This is what I mean when I say these are not serious people. They don't have solutions to actual problems, so they'd rather have the media and you talking about the Cheesecake Factory."

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"I will admit it's funny to call it a press conference at The Cheesecake Factory," Meyers said. "We said it on Monday, we'll say it again, stand-up comedy Obama is back. He's working out material for his next special, 'Hussein in the Membrane.'"

Meyers then put up a graphic for Obama's faux Netflix special.

"They, uh, held a press conference at The Cheesecake Factory. What's next? A summit with Vladimir Putin at the, uh, Olive Garden?" Meyers joked, imitating Obama. "You guys know it's not an actual factory, right? They don't make the cheesecakes on an assembly line. These [people] probably think Chuck E. Cheese is real."

Meyers continued, as Obama: "Trump's going to make him come to his next meeting with Elon Musk. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? A giant animatronic rat … meeting with Chuck E. Cheese."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Seth Meyers praises 'stand-up comedy Obama' after Cheesecake Factory uproar

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”