Donald Trump found himself mocked by a Democratic firebrand after spending the weekend at his New Jersey golf club with a 35-year-old blonde aide.
Natalie Harp has become a near-constant companion for the 80-year-old president, attending Oval Office meetings, carrying a portable printer to print out news stories she thinks he might like, and posting from his social media accounts late into the night.
Her own estranged brother has called her bond with the president “very unhealthy.”
Her close relationship with Trump was mocked by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, 39, during an election rally in Atlanta on Sunday.
Accusing Trump of “lying a nation into war, treating citizens as fools, and those who serve as pawns,” Ossoff contrasted the sailors enduring months at sea aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln with what he portrayed as a president more interested in naps, golf and his stock portfolio, as well as traveling with Harp on his new Air Force One.
“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. So he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar,” Ossoff said.
Several commentators picked up on Ossoff’s “travel with Natalie” remarks, including Mehdi Hasan, Ron Filipkowski and Adam Carlson, who all reposted the video of Ossoff’s remarks.
The MeidasTouch X account wrote: “oh he went there.”
Meanwhile, Michigan State Senate Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow wrote: “Ok I’ll bite. Who’s Natalie.”
Podcast host Jeff Storobinsky added: “And Melania stays in the marriage because?”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Harp’s relationship with Trump has been in the limelight since New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan revealed in their new book Regime Change that early in his second term, Trump told his team that Harp “was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and his kids.”
Harp, meanwhile, would leave gushing letters for Trump in his “personal spaces,” with one reportedly reading, “You are all that matters to me,” according to the book.
Harp’s unusually close relationship with Trump came into sharper focus last week when she was revealed to be one of a small group of aides the president took with him as he fled Air Force One on a catering truck to avoid a potential Iranian assassination threat.
Among those left behind were Secretary of State Marco Rubio and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, who continued aboard the “decoy” aircraft.
Speaking with MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff on Sunday, New York Times reporter Haberman offered an explanation for Harp’s presence on Trump’s escape flight.
She said the president appeared to rely on Harp for emotional reassurance during the tense operation.
“She is sort of his binkie, for lack of a better way of putting it—his comfort blanket,” Haberman said.
