Barack Obama revived his Cheesecake Factory jab at Trump's White House decor Wednesday as both men headlined dueling midterm rallies days from Election Day.
Former President Barack Obama took the stage in metro Atlanta and went straight back to the gold leaf. At The Arena at Southlake in Morrow, Georgia, he mocked the look of the renovated White House and framed the fight as a values test for voters still deciding their midterm ballots.
President Donald Trump held his own rally the same day at the Shoemaker Center at Ohio University in Chillicothe, Ohio. He downplayed Obama’s campaigning, backed Ohio Republicans on the ticket, and dangled a major federal prize for the state if voters delivered.
CNN’s live updates captured both events six days before the midterms, with early in-person voting in Georgia set to end October 30.
Obama had already needled the White House’s gilded style at a Cleveland rally over the weekend. He returned to it Wednesday with the same line of attack.
“There’s gold everywhere,” he said in the earlier remarks restated in the coverage. “What’s up with the gold? Everything, more gold!”
"I am the father of two daughters. Do you think I could have survived their childhood without going to the Cheesecake Factory? I lived at Chuck E. Cheese and California Pizza Kitchen and the Cheesecake Factory."
Obama said the Cheesecake Factory and spots like it were “his jam for about a decade,” and claimed Trump’s administration “mobilized” a “government response” to the joke comparing White House decor to the chain. He also called out what he labeled White House corruption and chided the administration over the war in Iran.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff urged Georgia voters to send a message to Trump. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock told the crowd to “stand up once again.” Georgia gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, joined them on the bill. Coverage noted she would become the nation’s first Black female governor if she wins.
In Chillicothe, Trump shared the stage with Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Sen. Jon Husted. He tossed hats, shook hands with Husted, and doubled down on a controversial Ramaswamy ad featuring Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother. Any pushback, Trump said, was “very unfair.”
Then came the lure. Ohio had formally submitted a bid to host a new U.S. Space Academy ahead of a NASA deadline earlier in the week. Several states applied. Trump tied the prize to the Senate race.
"And I wanted you to know that if Jon Husted wins, I am going to consider putting the Space Academy right here."
“If you win,” he added. “And everybody wants it. Every state, they all want it.” GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno also joined the Wednesday rally.
While the former presidents traded barbs, Michigan’s Senate race showed real strain inside the Democratic lane. Rep. Haley Stevens reaffirmed support for Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, even as The Detroit News reported that her fiancé, Jason Turkish, said he is voting for Republican Mike Rogers.
Stevens told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Michigan voters she has spoken to “are still undecided, and they are hurt and they are confused” by recent controversial ads. She said she is voting the Democratic ticket but pressed El-Sayed to go further.
"And this is why I think our nominee is in a very strong position to denounce the hateful ads that have hurt people."
“I know that, you know, he has it in him to denounce these two ads, to take them down,” Stevens said. “I’m voting for the Democratic ticket, but I want to encourage, you know, this campaign to shut out the hate and to call it out and to make people who were in my coalition, right, make them feel comfortable about coming to the polls.” Sources said Stevens and El-Sayed had not spoken in recent months. Trump has repeatedly attacked El-Sayed over his Muslim faith. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaigned for Rogers in Michigan on Monday.
In Alaska, Trump said Democrat Mary Peltola should drop out of the Senate race against incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and argued she should face criminal charges over reporting that her team helped put a potential spoiler on the ballot. Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee both denied involvement.
Sullivan told Fox News that Peltola has tried to trick Alaskans and said he would stay focused on campaigning and his record for now. Separately, federal Judge Sharon Gleason ruled Wednesday that Democrats and nonpartisan voter advocacy groups may intervene to oppose a Justice Department lawsuit that could block certification of Alaska’s Senate election. The order leaned on appeals court precedent for third-party intervention and set a fast briefing schedule: the Trump administration must respond by Thursday evening, the groups may reply by Friday afternoon, and a ruling on a motion to throw out the case could come as early as this weekend.
Election mechanics stayed in the fight too. On Tuesday the Potter County Republican Party and its leader, Daniel Roger, sued in federal court seeking an order that Texas hand-count all ballots before final certification. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who draws every case filed in his division, is overseeing the matter.
Texas law already requires a post-election hand-count audit of a sample of ballots. The lawsuit calls that insufficient and says a full hand count is needed to “safeguard” against tabulation errors from foreign hackers or artificial intelligence. Roger put the philosophy plainly years earlier.
"I trust people. I don’t trust electronics."
CNN reached out to the Texas Democratic Party and the Potter County elections administrator for comment.
In New Hampshire’s Senate debate, Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu pointed to Democrat Rep. Chris Pappas campaigning with Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Harris carried New Hampshire by 2.8 points in 2024. Pappas shot back that he was “proud to have the former vice president who carried the state of New Hampshire in the last election,” and branded Sununu as supportive of Trump’s agenda. Sununu called moderate Maine Sen. Susan Collins “a great model” and listed disagreements with Trump, including a proposed and later rescinded $1.8 billion fund for people the administration considers targets of government “weaponization.”
In Iowa on Wednesday night, Kennedy appeared with Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, a MAHA-aligned contender in a toss-up with Democrat Rob Sand. Kennedy struck a more conciliatory tone than he had Monday in Michigan, where remarks on Arabs and the Muslim Brotherhood, described in the coverage as a false claim, drew condemnation from El-Sayed and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"God talks to human beings through many vectors, through each other, organized religions, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art and literature and music and poetry."
Iowa GOP Senate nominee Ashley Hinson, pressed by CNN’s Manu Raju, faced questions on why she is not voting to end the war Trump launched with Iran. Across the map, Black candidates are vying for governor in eight states as the final stretch tightens.
Decor jokes travel well on cable. Governing still gets decided by voters who have to live with the results.
