President Donald Trump and his executive assistant Natalie Harp exit Marine One at the Ellipse near the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 16, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
A senior Trump administration official likened the West Wing to a high school cafeteria, blaming a “clique” around the president for the atmosphere inside the White House, according to the Daily Mail.
“Behind this president is a clique that turned the West Wing into a lunch table,” the unnamed official told Daily Mail columnist Maureen Callahan.
“A presidency can survive its enemies, but this one clearly cannot afford a mean-girl machine that would rather own the room than leave a legacy,” the official added.
Callahan’s Thursday column focused on the access Natalie Harp, Donald Trump’s executive assistant, has to the president. Harp recently began working out of his dining room, Callahan wrote, and sat with him in the White House private residence as last week’s midterm returns came in.
Then-chief of staff Susie Wiles was also there, according to the columnist.
Even as Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, Callahan wrote, Trump “seems increasingly preoccupied with Harp.”
Callahan also pointed to letters from Harp to Trump previously excerpted by The New York Times. “I never want to bring you anything but joy,' Harp wrote. “You are all that matters to me.”
“Now, it seems, we see the real Trump: a leader of the free world preoccupied with the adoration of younger women, no matter the cost to his legacy,” Callahan concluded.
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