President Donald Trump's administration has only itself to blame for turning a mundane question about Sen Jon Ossoff (D-GA) into an unrelenting media circus over an aide who appears unnervingly smitten with him, according to a new analysis.
In his column for The Atlantic, longtime DC insider Jonathan Lemire claimed the unsettling relationship between the president and Natalie Harp has swamped an administration that has lost control of the narrative.
As he wrote, Ossoff casually mentioned "Natalie," a CNN reporter brought up the senator during a press availability and then "the West Wing lost its mind. And Trump did too."
Their pushback was so overwhelming, "so obviously coordinated, so ugly and personal" that it became a story. The White House inadvertently created news, as well as a "permission structure"for even the most cautious, fact-based media organizations to take on the topic, which is why the name Natalie Harp is now everywhere.
This "White House rarely does things subtly" when it comes to pushing back against a story aides don't like, the two options are "usually scorched earth or total obliteration," Lemire wrote before adding, but even by that over-the-top standard, the outsize reaction was eyebrow-raising.
Pointing out that White House Communications Director Steven Cheung unleashed a strongly worded post on Monday morning, writing in part, "Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics. Instead of denigrating hard working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he's a miserable person who hates this country.," Lemire wrote the gates then opened to excessive Harp scrutiny.
"Meanwhile, White House aides and Trump allies began an all-out shielding of Harp," Lemire observed. "One of the president’s sons defended her, as did a Cabinet member and a congresswoman. With some prodding from the White House, a whole bunch of conservative media members and MAGA influencers joined them, I was told by one of the people who’d received a nudge. If the goal was to shut down talk about Harp, it backfired spectacularly. Suddenly, media outlets that had ignored her felt the need to write about her."
