A new report sheds light on President Donald Trump's volcanic tirade against talk show host Bill Maher and reveals concerns about the information he's getting from his closest advisers.
The New York Times reported that Trump tuned in “expectantly” to Maher’s HBO show last Friday to watch his former press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, a trusted aide who left the White House in August, but instead he was “enraged” by Maher’s opening monologue.
The comedian brought up Trump’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and he also looked back on a friendly dinner he had at the White House in October, quipping that he “could not have been treated better if I was Russian.”
Furious, Trump dictated a roughly 1,300-word social media post to close aide Natalie Harp aboard Air Force One, and the diatribe went up on Truth Social soon after he got back to the White House on Sunday evening.
“You’re not transformative, you’re a Loser! I never watched your show much, but I will never watch it again,” Trump seethed in the post he dictated.
The episode shows how close Harp, 35, has become to the president as his circle shrinks in the final days before the midterms.
According to several administration officials, she gave up her usual desk outside the Oval Office in recent weeks and now works out of Trump’s private dining room, where a spot has been cleared for her among stacks of printed news articles and documents, when she isn’t sitting behind the president at his desk.
The Times described Trump as “increasingly cloistered with a small group of acolytes," and officials say his media diet has become just as narrow.
Trump is “feasting on a media diet of fawning press coverage, disparaging clips about his perceived enemies, and helpings of flattering photos and ‘A.I. slop,’ as one official put it,” the newspaper reported.
Some of that slop comes from Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who often drops into Trump’s Air Force One cabin with memes, posters and mortgage-industry documents, and one administration official compared him to a court jester. Pulte didn’t respond to a request for comment.
When Trump does come across critical or mocking coverage, he reacts with “incredulity,” the Times reported. He has waved off polls showing his unpopularity and has raged against unflattering stories that sink him into “a dark mood.”
The insular atmosphere comes as Republicans brace for losses on Tuesday. Some GOP advisers and outside groups have warned that Trump’s rallies in close states could do more harm than good.
White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez insisted the team “remains strong, united and focused on delivering his America First agenda.”