The White House lashed out at independent journalist Aaron Rupar Saturday night after he flagged who President Donald Trump brought with him during his trip to Ireland.
“Look who made the trip to Ireland!” Rupar wrote Saturday in a social media post on X to his more than 1.1 million followers, alongside a photograph of Trump’s 35-year-old female aide Natalie Harp, whose unusually close relationship with the president has unsettled the White House.
The “Rapid Response 47” account on X, overseen by Trump’s special assistant Jake Schneider, responded to Rupar’s online post with fury.
“President Trump does, in fact, travel with staff,” reads the response from the White House. “Aaron, on the other hand, is a sick, deluded freak (in his 40s) who sits behind a keyboard and posts creepy things like this.”
As flagged by The Daily Beast earlier on Saturday, First Lady Melania Trump notably did not accompany her husband on his trip to Ireland, despite his apparent pleas. Trump’s “ever-adoring aide” Harp, however, was “in tow,” the Beast noted.
Rupar clapped back at the White House’s response with a tongue-in-cheek reference to Trump’s admitted propensity for younger women.
“I know being in my 40s makes me too old for the president but I’m at peace with it,” Rupar wrote.
During a resurfaced 2006 interview with radio host Howard Stern, Trump, then 60 years old, said he would have “no trouble” with having sexual encounters with 24-year-old women. When asked by Stern if he had an “age limit,” Trump said he didn’t “want to be like Congressman [Mark] Foley with 12-year-olds,” referencing the disgraced Republican lawmaker who was exposed that same year for sending sexually explicit messages to teenage boys.
Prominent liberal influencer Joanne Carducci took Rupar’s assertion even further, arguing that Rupar was “too old for [Trump] at 15.”
I know being in my 40s makes me too old for the president but I’m at peace with it
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2026