Donald Trump suffered a mid-afternoon meltdown aboard Marine One while returning to the White House after a turbulent Labor Day weekend away at one of his golf clubs.
Footage of the 80-year-old president’s cockpit tirade shows him speaking and gesticulating aggressively at the helicopter pilots after touching down at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey around 4.30 p.m. on Monday. He had flown in from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
His 35-year-old aide Natalie Harp, who has faced intense scrutiny over the past several weeks for her closeness to Trump, was also on board. So was 31-year-old White House Communications Adviser Margo Martin.
It is not clear from the video what exactly upset the president. The footage shows him making a series of firm and dismissive gestures while speaking to the pilots, like waving his hand and jabbing his finger.
He then disembarked, wearing a MAGA hat and his trademark blue suit, before ignoring the Marines saluting him by the aircraft to amble across the tarmac. He gave a brief wave to a gaggle of nearby reporters and then boarded Air Force One for the transfer on to Joint Base Andrews and the White House.
It capped a Labor Day weekend marred by erratic behavior from the president. Trump kicked things off before even leaving the Oval Office on Friday by insisting his six-month, $37.5 billion war with Iran isn’t in fact a “war” at all, but rather “small potatoes” for U.S. military forces.
The president then stepped onto the tarmac during his initial transfer at Morristown that afternoon with visibly darker hair. His distinctive coiffure has sparked ridicule and intrigue for years, but a run of peculiar changes in texture and color over the past several weeks has fueled online speculation that he may now have switched to wearing a wig.
The new hairdo remained safely tucked under a red MAGA hat for much of Saturday, when Trump shared a series of photos of himself on the links at Bedminster with Fox News star Bret Baier and National Intelligence Director Jay Clayton, among others. It was the 43rd day the president has golfed so far this year, and the 129th day he has golfed since returning to office last January.
Sunday proved the main event, when Trump embarked on a positive Truth Social frenzy. The president shared a slew of AI-generated images that included, in no particular order, himself riding horseback beside George Washington, arm wrestling late wrestler Hulk Hogan, tackling Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney while wearing hockey gear, and a rendering of the sinking Titanic labeled “Dumocratic Party.”
He also floated renaming New Mexico to “New America” and claimed, cryptically, “The Moon is Ours.”
The Daily Beast has closely cataloged Trump’s growing social media addiction throughout his second presidency. That analysis has shown, among other things, that the president posted more than 1,000 times last month, and that the late-night timing of his posts suggests that in April alone, there were only five days the 80-year-old president could have had a full night’s sleep.
Those late-night frenzies have only raised further questions about the president’s closeness with his 34-year-old female aide, Natalie Harp, who was with him throughout the weekend.
Harp, who earns a taxpayer-funded salary of $150,000 as Trump’s personal assistant, has attracted intense scrutiny amid reports of her obsessive attachment to the president, including that she has long helped him craft some of his more eccentric Truth Social posts.
The Daily Beast has contacted White House for comment on this story.
