President Donald Trump fawned over a younger aide's looks at an Oklahoma rally Thursday as devoted aide Natalie Harp looked on.
Trump brought 31-year-old communications adviser Margo Martin, an Oklahoma native, onto the stage in Durant, the Daily Beast reported. He then turned his attention to her appearance.
Martin "is known for a number of things," the president told the crowd. "I can't mention one, because if I do, my political career will be over."
He said it anyway. "You can never say that a woman is beautiful. If you say a woman is beautiful, that's the end of your political career. But, I'll say it anyway," Trump said, before declaring, "She is a beautiful woman, inside and out."
Gesturing toward Martin's parents, he went on, "I see why she's good-looking, actually. You know, I believe in the racehorse theory. Fast horses, right? Great mom and dad."
Harp was at the rally too, Hugh Dougherty pointed out on the "Daily Beast Podcast," where he and Joanna Coles picked apart the moment. "He brought [Martin] up, he hugged her, he talked about how beautiful she is. We know that that's the language of Trump," Dougherty said.
He noted that photos surfaced earlier in the week appearing to show Trump shouting at Harp, and that Martin "has regularly been mistaken for Melania."
"I actually feel for Natalie Harp watching that," Coles said.
Coles suggested the rally could reflect a deliberate tactic. "It seems that he's trying to pit them against each other, which is something we know he does with his Cabinet," she said, pointing to JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth.
Both women have worked in the White House since the first day of Trump's second term. Each earns $150,000 a year, and each received a $45,000 cash gift from Trump, apparently for the holidays, the Washington Post reported last month. Harp has called Trump her "Guardian and Protector in this Life" in letters published by the Daily Beast.
Asked for comment, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung shot back. "Joanna shouldn't be so jealous, it's not a good look for her," he said.
