FEMALE TROUBLE

Trump’s Women Erupt in Spectacular Catfight

Things are getting heated in Trumpworld—especially among the president’s closest female aides.

A bitter power struggle between two of the most influential women in President Donald Trump’s inner circle has spilled into public view, exposing fresh turmoil inside the White House.

On The Daily Beast Podcast, the Beast’s executive editor Hugh Dougherty said Politico Playbook reports about Susie Wiles, 69, and Natalie Harp, 35, exposed tensions between the White House chief of staff and the president’s “human printer” amid a tumultuous time in MAGA world.

On Thursday, the widely read newsletter reported that Trump, 80, had been phoning allies to solicit their opinions of Wiles, fueling speculation that the president was considering ousting one of his most trusted longtime advisers.

The outlet reported then that Trump suggested several replacements for Wiles, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, special envoy Steve Witkoff, housing chief Bill Pulte, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and New York Yankees President Randy Levine.

On Friday, Playbook reported that Harp had printed out its Thursday edition and showed it to Trump, causing a “freakout” in the White House as the president “blew up” over bad headlines about his chief of staff.

“The White House is in a state of panic,” an insider said. “Susie is looking over her shoulder, trying to solicit people to go out and say good things about her and her team and make it seem like everything is fine. It’s not.”

Meanwhile, according to Playbook, Wiles and her allies “burn[ed] up phones around town” to put out the fire.

Trump insisted in a statement that all was well between him and Wiles, declaring, “TOTAL FAKE NEWS Politico doesn’t care about facts, integrity, or honest journalism — it’s why I kicked them out of the White House!”

“Susie Wiles is my loyal and longest serving Chief of Staff — there is a reason for that,” he continued. “She has been with me since the beginning, is my trusted advisor, and has my COMPLETE confidence.”

But the dramatic sequence of events spoke volumes about the relationship between Wiles and Harp, Dougherty told host Joanna Coles.

“We always knew that she printed out this crazy, crazy slop from the internet,” Dougherty said of Harp. “But this isn’t crazy slop. This is clearly very well reported journalism. And she printed it out, and it’s torn the whole situation up. And therefore, Susie Wiles is trying to fight back through her intermediaries and her whole career.”

Harp earned the “human printer” moniker by following Trump around and fulfilling his every request, including fetching merchandise, performing Google searches, printing pro-Trump stories from right-wing websites, and suggesting possible Truth Social posts. She earns a taxpayer-funded salary of $150,000 a year as a special assistant and executive assistant to the president.

Harp’s unusually close relationship with Trump has unsettled those in his inner circle, largely because of fawning love letters she has written to him, including one in which she declared, “You are all that matters to me.”

White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan previously reported in their book Regime Change that the letters once made Wiles wonder, “Where am I?”

Coles asked Dougherty about Wiles: “Is she fighting a rearguard action against her own reputation, or is she fighting against Natalie Harp? And is the implication by Natalie printing this out and giving it to Trump, that Natalie Harp is actually trying to keep him aware of what people are saying, and it’s actually a good thing to do that? Or is she doing it to say, ‘You need to get rid of Susie Wiles’? Because we know that Susie Wiles is concerned about Natalie Harp’s relationship with the president. She thinks it’s unsuitable. She thinks she’s too close.”

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“Yes, I think that’s it exactly,” Dougherty said. “In a normal White House, telling Donald Trump what is being [said] out there about him would be normal, right? Barack Obama, George W. Bush read what was in the news,” Dougherty said. “But this is a pointed weapon. We know that Susie Wiles does not appreciate Natalie Harp. We know that Susie Wiles thinks that the ability of Natalie Harp to present crazy, crazy slop to him is a problem. We know that when people go behind Susie Wiles’ back, she goes after them.”

It didn’t help that Wiles was already in the headlines after Trump snubbed her pick for White House press secretary—CNN conservative commentator Scott Jennings—in favor of Katie Zacharia.

Trump fired Zacharia, 41, after just five days, setting a new record for the shortest tenure as White House press secretary.

One of the final nails in Zacharia’s coffin was her contentious interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who is known to be close to Wiles.

“They have had a close alliance because of his endless sucking up to Trump and his boosting of Trump on television,” Dougherty said. “Sean Hannity on Tuesday had been saying Katie Zacharia is the victim of the elite liberal media mob. ‘How dare they question her credentials?’ She did an interview with Sean Hannity. Guess what he did? He questioned her credentials.”

When reached for comment about the reported rift, the White House referred the Daily Beast to Harp’s September interview with Washingtonian, where she called Wiles one of her role models.

“Success is determined not just by what is achieved, but under what circumstances. Fighting cancer while serving as Chief of Staff for the Most Consequential President in History, Susie Wiles is an example to all of what can be accomplished when one has the strength and resolve to do so,” Harp wrote to the outlet in an email—random capital letters and all.

Zacharia wasn’t the only high-profile MAGA woman to get the boot this week. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump’s former daughter-in-law-to-be, was also ousted from her post as ambassador to Greece following a string of embarrassing reports about her conduct, including allegations that she attempted to solicit $100,000 from a Trump donor to pay off her American Express bill in exchange for access to administration officials. Guilfoyle has denied any wrongdoing.

In an ironic twist, it was Zacharia who announced Guilfoyle’s departure during her first—and only—White House press briefing.

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