MS NOW's Jen Psaki kicked off "The Briefing" on Thursday with pointed mockery at first lady Melania Trump's first public appearance in a month — and the reason why it had to be organized.
"There are a lot of times in the Trump era that we have to remind ourselves ... that what's happening is not in any way normal," said Psaki. And one of those many things, she said, is "for the first lady of the United States to have to come out and remind us all that she exists."
Psaki played a clip of Melania speaking in the Rose Garden for Fostering the Future, saying, "Afternoon. I heard you missed me. Here I am."
With this appearance, said Psaki, Melania "has only been seen in public 38 days this year ... that is not normal." But the reason it's especially notable, she said, is how often Trump is seen on the trail with his young aide, Natalie Harp, whose closeness to Trump has sparked a number of strange rumors.
To be clear, Psaki continued, "I don't mean it's not normal for the president to have aides who travel with him everywhere, including female aides. Believe me, I've been one of those several times. Plenty of presidents have those, but it is not normal for a person working in the White House to write intimate, devotional personal letters for the president ... never mind leave them in his personal spaces."
Nor, she said, is it normal "for a person without a security clearance, who refused to fill out the forms for some reason, to have close regular access to the president ... It's not normal for that same person to be the point of contact for foreign leaders hoping to speak to the president." And, she added, it's definitely not normal "for a staffer to ride inside the trunk of a car just to be close to the president, as CNN reports that Natalie Harp did, to be close to Trump back in 2023."
Ultimately, said Psaki, it's "not normal for the president to basically have an adult babysitter of sorts, to have a human security blanket who accompanies him everywhere he goes. But that is the role that Natalie Harp plays for Donald Trump."