Obama and Clinton Mock Trump's White House Renovations at Rallies

Barack Obama said on Saturday that Donald Trump seems more focused on home renovation than on other work, and suggested the president should have a show on HGTV, the American home-makeover channel.

Speaking at a rally in Ohio, Obama said Trump is building a ballroom bigger than the White House itself. He asked “what's with all the gold” in the building's decor. He also said Trump had left the White House looking like “Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory,” a joke about the large American restaurant chain known for its huge menus. The remarks were reported by Fox 5 New York.

Former president Bill Clinton had taken aim at the same work a day earlier. At a rally in Hollywood, Florida, on Friday, he said Congress had made a mistake by not objecting to changes to the Rose Garden, which he said looked like “the entrance to Liberace's bathroom.” Liberace was a flamboyant American pianist of the mid-20th century. Clinton was referring to the newly paved patio in the Rose Garden, according to The Daily Beast.

The White House has been pushing back on the criticism with its own material. On Friday, Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff, posted a video on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, showing construction of the ballroom. Obama's comments were also covered by NBC Chicago.

The two former presidents made their remarks in the same week, both at campaign-style events. Obama's rally was a surprise appearance, and he used it to argue that the president's attention should be on domestic policy rather than on construction projects at the White House.

For anyone following the story, the renovations are now a regular target at political events. Both Obama and Clinton used humour to make their points, and both drew the crowd's laughter with lines about décor and design.