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It’s summertime, and the living is uneasy, particularly in Washington newsrooms and bureaus. At this time of year, historically, serious news can be harder to find than the news people available to cover it. The result is what journalists call “the silly season,” when you can never guess what pseudo-story will get elevated to the headlines.
Searching for silly news in seriously serious Washington can be easier than you might think, and of late it is becoming difficult to draw the line between the consequential and the absurd. Consider the kerfuffle raised around a remark by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat often mentioned among presidential hopefuls, about President Donald Trump and a young female aide.
Ossoff angered Team Trump -- and Trump himself -- by calling suggestive attention to the relationship widely described as exceptionally close between the president and Natalie Harp, his 35-year-old executive assistant. “He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff declared to an enthusiastic crowd, regarding Trump’s air of befuddlement amid a swirl of crises bedeviling his administration. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
“With Natalie.” Those two words ignited the crowd and delighted down-in-the-dumps Democrats elsewhere who, in this polarized election season, are looking exceptionally hard for candidates who show backbone. And they were not alone. A brief soundbite from Ossoff’s 30-minute speech drew more than 5 million views on X and a volcanic backlash from Republicans, including Harp’s boss, who shot back Monday calling Ossoff a “Pee Wee Herman lookalike” -- after mistakenly calling him “Pinky Herman.”
A chorus of MAGA influencers took to social media to post their outrage that this upstart cad from Georgia had impugned the honor of a blameless professional woman. Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got the Bat Signal, and he assailed Ossoff on X for “misogynistic language diminishing and smearing someone who is simply doing their job.”
It was interesting for reporters and talking heads, with nothing else going on, to observe a familiar tactical maneuver on the political battlefield, with the Trump camp preparing to isolate and smother Ossoff under a social media dogpile, and to pummel Democrats on an issue they supposedly “own.”
But I would caution those who are eager, for whatever reason, to jump on the bandwagon that sees Ossoff’s barb as sexual innuendo. It would bother me if all the Harp chatter was about spreading salacious rumors about an attractive young woman working with an older boss.
We’ve seen this too many times before. You might even say it’s the way of the world, I guess, but without real evidence to back it up, I don’t want to be part of the rumor mills. But I would also suggest that Ossoff’s comment was not intended to suggest a sexual relationship. Although I acknowledge that such an explanation is exactly the misdirection GOP strategists would want to create.
Rather, this story is about Trump’s deep, pathological need for sycophancy. Throughout his careers in business and politics, Trump has always sought to display his dominance. It’s no surprise, then, that in his televised cabinet meetings his closest advisers vie to outdo each other in displays of flattery.
What’s important about Harp’s relationship to Trump is not the prurient interest but rather that she seems to be, as New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman put it, “sort of his binky, for lack of a better word, his comfort blanket.” And, consequently, she seems to be his main conduit to reality.
We have little idea who Harp is. And the more we learn, the more anxious we ought to be.
Harp is referred to by many in Trumpworld as “the human printer” for her role supplying the president with printed copies of everything from news reports to social media chatter. In fact, according to a report two years ago in The Bulwark by the well-sourced reporter Marc Caputo, Harp actually trails Trump everywhere with a portable printer in tow.
She reportedly works seven days a week, texts with world leaders on his behalf and stays up late with him drafting social media posts. This has made her extremely influential. As one source told Caputo, “If you want the president to see something, the best route is Natalie.”
She also doesn’t seem to have a boss, other than Trump. And it seems she may have worked for a year in her highly sensitive position without a security clearance. Over the years, questions have arisen about who controls Trump’s social media accounts and gatekeeps the often toxic messages that emanate from them. Some observers suggest that Harp is a central player.
I was downright outraged by reports that Harp sent out the racist video on Trump’s Truth Social account that portrayed former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Some of us take that personally, not that Trump appears to care. The post, created under Trump’s direction, appeared in February at the end of a minute-long video promoting false claims about the 2020 election. It was deleted about 12 hours later after a furious bipartisan backlash.
But, as one who believes in free speech and our democratic system, I hold the faith that such cheap shots will be punished, sooner or later, by the voters. That’s the way democracies mete out political justice. It’s not perfect but it offers an irreplaceably valuable chance for us voters to be heard. And we need every chance we can get.
E-mail Clarence Page at clarence47page@gmail.com.