Alexander Willis

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) ignited an online firestorm over the weekend after taking a jab at President Donald Trump’s unusually close relationship with his 35-year-old female aide Natalie Harp, leading to a trove of adoring letters she wrote the president to resurface.

Speaking at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Ossoff argued that Trump would rather “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie” than “do his job,” a remark that created an explosion of online interest in Harp, who has been referred to as Trump's "human binky." Search queries on Google for Harp’s name increased by 1,600% this week compared to the previous week, and an increase of 5,000% when compared with the same period last year, resulting in Harp’s unnerving letters resurfacing.

“You are all that matters to me,” Harp wrote in a 2023 letter to Trump viewed and confirmed as authentic by The New York Times, a letter that the Times claimed “unnerved people around” the president. “I don’t ever want to let you down.”

In the same letter, Harp thanked Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life,” and in another letter, exclaimed: “I want to bring you joy,” and that she felt “like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”

Reacting to the resurfaced letters, law professor and ex-Biden administration official Topher Spiro wagered that “someday we’re all gonna find out that Ossoff was right.”

Seth Abramson, an attorney, author and retired professor, suspected there was far more to Trump and Harp’s relationship than currently known.

“Anyone else starting to feel like there’s a scandal hiding behind all this that’s absolutely disgusting?” Abramson wrote in a social media post on X. “Because the White House and all its friends lost it today just because Natalie Harp was mentioned in public. I feel like the whole nation’s Spidey-senses should be tingling.”

Details on Harp’s past have also resurfaced amid the growing scrutiny.

“She doesn't call me. I've accepted that's the way it is,” Harp’s paternal grandmother, Dolores ‘Dee Dee’ Harp, told the Daily Mail in June.

In an exclusive report, the Daily Mail uncovered Natalie Harp’s family “secret” that left her and her mother estranged from other family members. Natalie Harp’s father died in 2020 in what was ruled a suicide, but according to Preston Harp, Natalie Harp’s older brother, Natalie Harp “wanted to say [her father] died in his sleep.”

Preston Harp refused to conceal the manner of his father’s death and informed his extended family of his father’s suicide, leading to a “family fallout,” the Daily Mail reported.

As to Natalie Harp’s relationship with Trump – one reportedly so close it’s unsettled the White House – Preston Harp described it as “very unhealthy.”

“She's just like his fan club,” Preston Harp told the Daily Mail.

Other details of Natalie Harp’s relationship with Trump have also resurfaced, including an incident where she moved into the women’s locker room of Trump’s Bedminster golf club in 2023 just to be closer to the president after being denied a room.

Trump was also captured on camera giving Natalie Harp a kiss as he brought her up stage during an event in 2019, and on Monday, Headquarters – the digital media project launched by former Vice President Kamala Harris – shared “unearthed video” of Natalie Harp “personally” typing out Trump’s social media posts while sitting beside him.

In the wake of a “Trump Superstore” in Tennessee shuttering due to a lack of business, several former supporters of President Donald Trump took the shop’s imminent closure as an omen that the MAGA movement had officially died.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw someone wearing a MAGA hat or Trump shirt,” wrote former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), previously one of Trump’s most loyal followers before their split last year amid disputes over Jeffrey Epstein.

Located near Knoxville, Tennessee, the Trump merchandise store is selling its remaining stock at a 50% discount ahead of its eventual – and permanent – closure, Slate reported.

Bill Hays, the owner of the store, said his shop was closing due to a “lack of business,” a claim corroborated by a part-time employee named Dan, Slate reported.

Another Trump-themed store in Illinois also ran into trouble in recent months – the Trump Truth Store in Crystal Lake, which temporarily closed in April due to a drop in sales.

“Sales were really slow,” said Lisa Fleischmann, the owner of Trump Truth Store, speaking with The Chicago Tribune.

Fleischmann, who the next month would be arrested in a chaotic scene on a warrant for driving without a license, blamed the plummeting interest in Trump-themed merchandise squarely on the president's decision to launch the deeply unpopular war against Iran.

“It all started with the war. It was dead as a door nail the minute that happened,” Fleischmann said.

Conservative influencer Brian Eastwood, once a fierce supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement, reacted to the most recent Trump store’s closure with a solemn reflection on the current state of affairs.

“If this was the Golden Age this wouldn’t be happening,” Eastwood wrote, referring to the closure of the Trump shop. “I think I might burn my MAGA flag, tshirt, and hat. Why? Well just to p--- some people off. This isn’t the golden age.”

Eastwood appeared to become disillusioned with Trump amid his resistance to the release of Epstein-related files last year, as well as with Trump’s strong support of Israel during his second term.

Another previously pro-Trump online political commentator, Nick Fad, also voiced his regrets in reaction to the Trump store’s closure. And, like Eastwood, appears to have become disillusioned with Trump over his support of Israel.

“This all could've been avoided, but then they started releasing the North Korea style 100% MAGA polls,” Fad wrote in a social media post on X, also referring to the Trump shop’s closure. “All that's left now are podcast grifters whose identity is centered around Trump.”

Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta expressed his shock and disgust Tuesday following the White House’s “deeply personal attack” on a reporter that invoked their children, an attack that Acosta argued reached a “new low” even for the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump snapped at CNN’s Kristen Holmes on Monday after she asked about his especially close relationship with his 35-year-old female aide Natalie Harp, a relationship so close that it’s reportedly “unnerved people around” the president. Trump’s staffers followed suit, attacking Holmes online.

“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” reads a social media post from “Rapid Response 47,” the White House’s official rapid response account on X. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”

Acosta, who has his own storied history of being on the receiving end of insults from Trump, sympathized with Holmes, whom he said he’d worked with “going all the way back to the 2016 campaign,” while also issuing Trump’s staffers a blistering rebuke.

“The only people who should be sickened and embarrassed are the staffers who operate this account. It is never acceptable for government employees to go after a reporter’s children in this disgraceful fashion,” Acosta wrote in an analysis published Tuesday on his Substack.

“But, of course, these White House employees work for Trump. As I like to say, it’s another day that ends in Y. So, they will do this again, and again. And again. There is no bottom. There is no worst. Until they finally go and this is all over.”

Acosta scoffed at the idea that Trump and his team would ever “treat members of the press with any kind of professional respect, or at the very least, like human beings,” but did issue a call to journalists to rally behind Holmes and any reporter attacked by the president’s staff in such a manner.

“It is not too much to ask that members of the D.C. media establishment rise to the moment and defend their colleagues when they are subjected to the ugliest kinds of personal attacks,” Acosta wrote. “I have no doubt that Kristen’s children will be proud of their mom someday. The real question is… what about the rest of us?”

Peace talks between Washington and Tehran are officially dead, according to a statement released by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, despite the president having claimed talks were ongoing just days earlier.

“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

As recently as last week, Trump told Real America’s Voice that he was still “sort of negotiating” with Iranian leadership, and the day before that, he told Axios that his administration was “semi-negotiating” with Tehran, despite Iranian claims to the contrary.

Iran has instead engaged in negotiations with Oman on a deal to manage traffic flow through the Strait of Hormuz, and has explicitly excluded the United States from the talks. When asked Monday for his thoughts on the Iran-Oman negotiations, Trump threatened to “bomb the S” out of Oman should they “get in the way” of his administration’s efforts to fully re-open the strait, according to Fox News’ Trey Yingst.

Investor and market expert Lawrence McDonald highlighted a series of “red flashing signals” Tuesday during an appearance on Fox Business, signals that he warned were “very similar” to conditions leading up to the 1987 global market crash known as Black Monday.

Founder of The Bear Traps Report and a former Lehman Brothers vice president who co-wrote the bestselling account of the bank's 2008 collapse, "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense," told Fox Business host Cheryl Casone that President Donald Trump’s tariffs were producing weaker results even as bond markets flash global warning signs.

“We're getting diminishing returns on the tariffs, but on the bond side, this is a global story,” McDonald said.

He explained that climbing rates are dragging bond prices lower, making bonds an increasingly attractive rival to stocks for investor cash.

“When bonds start to offer competitive returns relative to stocks, that's when the risk-reward deteriorates – it's very similar to the summer of '87,” McDonald said. “I'm not saying we're going to crash, but historically, when bonds start to threaten stocks at this degree, especially with global rates across the G7 going up, investors watching us right now have to have extreme caution.”

Months before Black Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 22.6% on Oct. 19, 1987, still the steepest single-day percentage loss the index has ever posted. Casone said she understood too well the “red flashing signals” McDonald was “putting out there.”

McDonald's reference to "diminishing returns" reflects a well-documented tension: tariffs have pushed the effective U.S. import tax rate to its highest level since 1969 without meaningfully shrinking the trade deficit they were designed to close, instead adding roughly $900 to the average household's tax bill this year.

When the Supreme Court struck down a significant share of Trump's tariffs in February, the ruling shook Treasury markets by threatening to swell the federal deficit and add fuel to an economy already contending with elevated inflation, one of the pressures keeping the Federal Reserve cautious about cutting rates and yields elevated.

Julie K. Brown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting helped lead to Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest in 2019, celebrated a “victory for transparency” Tuesday in the wake of a federal judge’s order to make a critical trove of Epstein-related files public, files that she suspected would hold “new material.”

Ghislane Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice who’s currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, was dealt a fatal blow last week after U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska rejected her “final arguments” in a failed bid to keep a trove of documents under seal related to a defamation lawsuit filed against her by Virginia Giuffre in 2015.

Giuffre filed the defamation suit against Maxwell in September 2015, alleging Maxwell defamed her by publicly branding her trafficking allegations "obvious lies." The case ended in a confidential settlement in 2017, but discovery materials – depositions, exhibits and other records tied to Epstein's network – remained largely under seal.

With Preska rejecting Maxwell’s final bid to keep said files out of the public eye last week, however, as many as 90,000 pages of new Epstein-related documents could soon be made public, Brown noted.

“I suspect there will likely be some new information in the material. As background, the court allowed Giuffre’s law firm (Boies Schiller) to provide to the Government (for grand jury purposes) documents that they received from Maxwell in discovery in this litigation. Boies Schiller would likely have provided all discovery to the government, which is a much larger bucket of documents than the ones that have been released thus far,” Brown wrote.

“We could see, for example, full deposition transcripts, responses to interrogatories, documents exchanged privately between the parties, etc. Maxwell’s opposition to the Government’s motion claimed that Boies Schiller provided 90,000 pages of documents to the government, including both of Maxwell’s deposition transcripts (we’ve already seen at least one of the transcripts).”

Despite the legal victory, Brown also urged caution given the recent history of the Trump administration’s Justice Department, which critics have accused of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by continuing to withhold around 3 million Epstein-related files.

President Donald Trump erupted Tuesday morning in a lengthy 526-word rant on social media attacking Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a GOP gubernatorial candidate who polls show is neck-and-neck with a Trump-backed opponent.

“Gentner Drummond is a FAKE Republican, who donated to SLEEPY Joe Biden, and the totally corrupt and anti-American ‘Lincoln Project,’ which is now in shambles because of their views on Open Borders, Men playing in Women’s Sports, and Transgender Mutilization [sic] of your Children,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

A recent independent poll showed Drummond pulling 44% support among likely Republican voters, and his Trump-backed opponent, former Oklahoma state senator Mike Mazzei, also polling at 44%.

Trump also attacked Drummond for not defending him following his second impeachment, which he called a “hoax” designed to target “a young and very handsome gentleman, named, President Donald J. Trump (ME!).”

“Drummond is not the right guy,” Trump continued. “He’s got a bad attitude, and he doesn’t stand for the Values of Oklahoma, which must VOTE FOR ‘MIKE MAZZEI FOR GOVERNOR,’ on Tuesday, August 25th — MIKE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

The White House sprang into motion Monday following a recent jab at President Donald Trump over his “unhealthy” relationship with his 35-year-old female aide, and one White House insider revealed Tuesday why the dig appeared to strike such a nerve.

Over the weekend, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) criticized Trump during a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, name-dropping his 35-year-old assistant, Natalie Harp. He argued that the president would rather “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie” than “do his job.”

Within hours, the White House leaped into action. White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung called Ossoff the “biggest cuck loser in politics,” and White House spokesperson Davis Ingle attacked Ossoff as a “cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid” and a “lightweight loser.” Trump was asked about Ossoff’s remark by a reporter on Monday, and soon after, the White House attacked the question as a “cheap shot,” and the reporter as a “scumbag.”

Speaking with Semafor for its report published Tuesday, one insider revealed the reason for the White House’s aggressive response to Ossoff’s remarks.

“One person close to the White House said Harp ‘will ultimately jump the highest out of anyone in the room when he says jump,’ adding that the aggressive pushback is partly because ‘the first lady doesn’t like these types of things’ and Trump ‘does get furious’ about personal topics,” Semafor’s report reads.

“Harp’s proximity to Trump has unnerved some of his aides and sparked unfounded rumors about a relationship.”

Harp has gone on to become estranged from some of her family members due to her close relationship with Trump, including from her own brother, who described her relationship with the president as “very unhealthy.”

“It just kind of caused some cognitive dissonance,” Preston Harp, Natalie Harp’s 38-year-old estranged brother, told the Daily Mail back in June. “I don't understand why my sister, or anyone, could want to work for Trump. It's hard to believe that's my sister... I can't connect with that vibe, so I'm just going to let it be.”

Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta joked Monday that he may soon receive a visit from the U.S. Secret Service after sharing – and bursting out laughing – over an image depicting first lady Melania Trump shoving a catering crate containing President Donald Trump off a cliff.

Trump was scrutinized last week for “humiliatingly having to hide inside of a catering truck” out of fear of a supposed attempt on his life from Tehran, an incident that occurred in July but was first reported last week by The Washington Post.

“The whole world is laughing at the President of the United States, which is not a new experience for all of us here in America. But there’s one… should we be showing this?” Acosta said Monday on “The Jim Acosta Show” before starting to laugh as the image was queued up.

“It’s Melania pushing the catering container off the cliff. She even has the inauguration hat and everything, and Trump says, ‘Natalie, is that you?’ Oh my god. Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get a knock on the door from U.S. Secret Service? Is this like 86-47? Am I allowed to put this on? Oh, boy.”

The reference to “Natalie” included in the image is a likely reference to Natalie Harp, Trump’s 34-year-old executive assistant whose closeness to the president has unsettled the White House. She’s been nicknamed “the human printer” for “following Trump around with a portable printer so she could hand-deliver him hard copies of emails, news articles and social media posts,” Yahoo! News reported.

Harp has become estranged from some of her family members, according to reporting from the Daily Mail, including from her own brother, who described her relationship with the president as “very unhealthy.”

Less than a week after delivering President Donald Trump a brutal “one-two punch” over his "supposed digestive incidents,” Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed “twisted the knife” further by again drawing attention to the president’s “alleged odor-causing release issues,” journalist Tommy Christopher flagged Monday.

On Aug. 8, Trump launched what Zeteo’s Martin Pengelly called an “Islamophobic and racist” attack on El-Sayed by highlighting his wife wearing an Islamic headscarf. Trump also said El-Sayed was “full of s---,” to which the Senate hopeful quipped: “At least I don’t let mine go in the middle of the Oval Office.”

El-Sayed’s unapologetic and swift response was seen by some as evidence that he may prove to be a formidable opponent for Trump, and the Michigan Democrat was asked about his remarks on Sunday by progressive political commentator Jack Cocchiarella.

“You hit back on Donald Trump’s health. Obviously, there’s something going on up there,” Cocchiarella said, gesturing to his head, “and also going on with the… release. Was that line sitting at the top of your head, or have you been thinking about Donald Trump’s health recently?”

El-Sayed doubled down on his earlier assertion that Trump might have issues with involuntary flatulence.

“Watching those videos, and you’re just like… he can’t seem to keep it in!” El-Sayed said. “So he wants to comment on me? Two can play at that game.”

Last year, White House physician Capt. Sean Barbabella confirmed that Trump had been diagnosed with diverticulosis, a condition where small pouches form in the wall of the colon that can sometimes result in symptoms such as bloating, constipation or diarrhea. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the condition is often caused by lifestyle factors such as obesity and diets low in fiber and high in red meat.

Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who helped draft the first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, argued Monday that President Donald Trump has now dismantled that framework, and in doing so, may have "invited the next Pearl Harbor."

“I warned [in 2019] that flipping the script would put the United States in unnecessary mortal peril by exposing us to surprise [attacks] and stripping us of our greatest legacy and strongest protection: leadership of the free world,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published Monday on his Substack. “It’s happening now.”

Taylor wrote that the original 2017 strategy, largely shaped by aides rather than Trump himself, pledged to defend Taiwan, counter Russian aggression toward NATO and respond firmly to North Korean provocations. He argued those commitments are now being abandoned on every front, most recently with Trump’s unprecedented decision Sunday to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea.

“Trump ordered the Pentagon to ‘substantially reduce’ our joint military exercises with South Korea, complaining that our ally wouldn’t join his war with Iran and insisting the drills send a signal that is ‘inappropriate and hostile’ to our friends in North Korea, which he called ‘unthreatening and respectful,’” Taylor wrote.

“Ah yes, Mr. President, they are so “unthreatening” that during your first term we had to urgently plan for the possibility that the hermit kingdom might launch a nuclear attack on the continental United States because Kim Jong Un was so ‘respectful.’”

Taylor also pointed to a Pacific carrier gap near Taiwan and a growing Russian drone threat near NATO countries as further signs of American retreat, one that he suspected the United States’ “foes” were privately celebrating.

“Our enemies are gobsmacked by what’s happening,” Taylor wrote. “Under Donald Trump, we’ve walked out onto thin ice and handed our foes a sledgehammer. They must be fist-pumping in foreign briefing rooms.”

Geopolitical and national security expert Brandon Weichert issued a bold prediction in response to reports on the cratering morale of U.S. service members deployed to the Middle East, one suggesting the Republican Party could pay for it for a generation.

In recent weeks, a growing number of reports have shed light on the poor conditions U.S. service members have experienced while aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Family members of crew aboard say exhaustion and dwindling supplies have worn troops down during the extended deployment.

In a more recent potential example of low troop morale, foreign policy expert Trita Parsi shared an image Sunday he claimed had been sent to him from the Persian Gulf that, while not yet independently verified, appeared to show messages scribbled into dust on an aircraft wing criticizing President Donald Trump and his war against Iran.

Reacting to the image Parsi shared, Weichert anticipated a grim outlook for the GOP moving forward.

“Looking forward to the GOP being out of power for at least a generation. They’ve lost the Mandate of Heaven, as the ancient Chinese would say,” Weichert wrote, referencing the ancient Chinese political doctrine that states a ruler’s authority can be lost through corruption or incompetence.

Parsi also shared remarks he claimed were issued to him by an active duty U.S. service member, comments that appear to affirm reports of an unprecedented loss of morale among troops.

“What people in the media don't understand when they compare past conflicts to this one, is this operation has no morale behind it,” the service member told Parsi, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “That makes a world of difference to service members deployed to undesirable locations indefinitely."

Foreign policy analyst and think-tank executive Trita Parsi shared a photo Sunday of what he claimed were messages U.S. service members wrote in the dust on an aircraft wing in the Persian Gulf – messages that viciously mocked President Donald Trump and his deeply unpopular war against Iran.

Parsi claimed that the unverified photo was “sent to me from the field,” and appears to show the flap of an aircraft with countless messages scribbled into a thick layer of dust. Among them are several criticizing the U.S.-Iran conflict.

“Peace Deal #64 Incoming…. ALL THIS FOR THE HOLY LAND,” one message reads, an apparent reference to Trump's failed peace talks with Iran, as well as to growing claims that Israel "pulled" the president into the war, claims so persistent that Trump felt compelled to publicly refute them.

Another message dubbed Operation Epic Fury – the codename for the United States’ initial strikes on Iran in late February – as “Operation Epstein Fury,” an apparent reference to the growing sentiment that Trump launched the U.S. war against Iran to “distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal,” a belief that a majority of Americans hold according to a poll conducted in March.

Outside of Parsi’s claim, the authenticity of the photo has not been verified. Conservative podcaster and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Leigh Wolf called the image a “total fraud,” believing it to be of a KC-130 in Arizona “being stripped for parts,” and alleging the messages were likely written by “some random civilian in the U.S.”

James Griffin, however, a military and geopolitical writer who writes under the name Analytica Camillus, argued the image was likely authentic, writing that it “clearly” depicted “a real KC-135 deployed [at] a desert airbase (we just can’t say for certain what country it’s in),” and suspected it to be in either Qatar or Israel.

The photo's viral spread comes amid mounting reports of low morale among deployed U.S. service members. According to two U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News, military leaders have privately raised concerns inside the Pentagon and the White House about low morale and widespread fatigue among American service members deployed for months to support the war, and family members have echoed those concerns.