The White House has gone on the attack after a prominent Democrat made a remark about a little-known aide to Donald Trump amid a blast questioning whether the president actually wants the job.
Natalie Harp, 35, has found herself in the spotlight after she was one of the select few staffers chosen to accompany Trump on his secret flight out of Turkey in June.
US President Donald Trump and Natalie Harp step off from Marine One on Sunday. AP
Georgia senator Jon Ossoff made a tongue-in-cheek reference to Harp at a campaign rally on Sunday.
“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,” Ossoff said.
“He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
When asked about Ossoff’s comments on Harp on Monday, Trump went on the attack with remarks on the senator’s appearance.
“You mean Pee-Wee Herman? Pee-Wee Herman-lookalike,” Trump said.
He then turned on the reporter.
“You’re a loud, boisterous person. You’re fake news. Be quiet,” he told the reporter who asked the question about Ossoff’s comments, Kristen Holmes.
The White House official account then attacked the reporter, referencing her own children.
Natalie Harp disembarking Air Force One on the weekend. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
“(Holmes) is a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession,” the official X account wrote.
“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question.
“They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”
Holmes’s question was to directly quote Ossoff and then ask the president for his response.
White House communications director Steven Cheung went further in his attacks on Ossoff.
“Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” Cheung said.
“Instead of denigrating hard-working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he’s a miserable person who hates this country.
“It’s because he’s a radical, extremist Dumocrat.”
Natalie Harp in the White House last year with communications director Steven Cheung. Getty Images
Harp is one of Trump’s closest aides, often typing out his Truth Social posts as he dictates.
Her desk is adjacent to the Oval Office, making her quite literally one of the president’s closest staffers.
Harp has been known to carry a portable printer around with her, to print out positive headlines and memes to show to the president.
That includes on the golf course, where she has been seen in a cart with a laptop and printer.
Jon Ossoff is considered a potential candidate for president in 2028. AAP
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman described Harp in an unusual way.
“She is sort of his binkie, for lack of a better way of putting it—his comfort blanket,” Haberman said.
When there was an apparent on threat against Trump in June, she was one of only a handful of staffers who joined him on a secret flight out of Turkey.
Most White House staffers and the entire travelling press pool were on Air Force One, unaware of the threat against the plane and that the president was not on board.
George Senator Jon Ossoff with his Australian-born mother Heather Fenton. Jon Ossoff
Trump has on more than one occasion compared Ossoff to the 1980s children’s character Pee-Wee Herman.
Ossoff is being increasingly considered a frontrunner in the 2028 presidential primary, though he has not yet announced a bid.
The Georgia senator would be the first president to formerly hold Australian citizenship.
Though he was born and grew up in America, Ossoff had Australian citizenship from his Sydney-born mother. The senator has since let that citizenship lapse.
At just 39, Ossoff would be the youngest president in history if he is elected.