Guys— I must say that Jon Ossoff has been growing on me like a fungus. The buzzy young senator from Georgia, who is probably going to run for president in 2028, has come a long way from being known as the “hot Hank Johnson staffer” by DC media circles circa 2012. I’d argue that he’s now one of the best communicators the Democrats have, delivering barn burner speeches on the regular, destroying men like Pete Hegseth with unrelenting lines of questioning in Senate hearings, and incisively articulating the Trump administration’s corruption and dysfunction in a way I haven’t seen many other politicians be able to do.
But I was not prepared for what Ossoff did yesterday when he name-checked Natalie, the young blonde Trump aide who’s reportedly obsessed with him in an unhinged way, and insinuated what everyone else has been thinking about the two of them.
“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings,” Ossoff said at a rally in Atlanta yesterday. “He golfs and trades stocks. So he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Ossoff’s whole speech last night was brilliant, and even just in the clip above he managed to fit in so much damaging material: the sailors jumping overboard on the USS Lincoln because their conditions have deteriorated so badly; Trump losing the Iran war; his constant falling asleep in public; his golfing and insider trading and unpopular ballroom; the naked corruption and stupidity of Trump accepting flying palace from Qatar. Brilliantly communicated. But it was the “and travel with Natalie” Ossoff slipped in there that exploded like a bomb among people in the know and made everyone else curious enough to google who she is.
For reference, Natalie Harp is Trump’s longtime aide known by White House insiders as the “human printer,” because her job is basically to follow Trump around with a tiny printer and keep him happy by printing out positive articles and comments about him. She also transcribes Trump’s ramblings directly into Truth Social and makes his signature stream-of-consciousness posts for him, which you can see happening in real time here:
But this is not a normal professional relationship. Harp and Trump appear to be obsessed with each other; she’s reportedly written him love notes that “raised the eyebrows of Secret Service,” including one that said, “You are all that matters to me,” and another that said, “I want to bring you joy, to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’” When she worked on Trump’s campaign in Bedminster, New Jersey, she reportedly slept in the women’s locker room to be as close to him as possible. She believes that Trump is responsible for curing her bone cancer, even though he’s probably not. Melania supposedly can’t stand her.
In turn, Natalie is Trump’s “binkie” or his “comfort blanket,” per NYT’s Maggie Haberman, and goes everywhere with him from official business trips to golf games. When Trump recently had to hide in a catering truck and then secretly board a small plane out of Turkey due to a safety threat from Iran, he left several members of his cabinet like Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent on the decoy plane to potentially be shot out of the sky—but he made sure this random girl Natalie was aboard his safe plane alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Media gossipers have been referring to Natalie as Trump’s side-piece for years, but the legacy MSM—and certainly actual members of the U.S. Senate—have avoided really going there the way Ossoff finally did last night.
Ossoff’s dig appears to have hit a major nerve in the Trump administration. Stephen Cheung, White House Director of Communications, had a bit of a meltdown about it, calling Ossoff “the biggest cuck loser in politics.”
Another White House spokesman (who looks very much like a theatre kid) called Ossoff a “cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama,” which just feels like a reluctant acknowledgement that Ossoff is a great communicator.
And Trump himself, who’s really lost the juice in terms of nicknaming his opponents, called Ossoff “Pee-Wee Herman” in an interview today while dodging the whole Natalie part.
My point in diving into this story is not that Trump having an affair with his 35-year-old aide would be an earth-shattering or even remotely surprising revelation to anyone. We know Trump’s a cheater and a creep. This is all more to say that Jon Ossoff, who’s known for being quite serious and disciplined and on message, said something really funny and cutting in his speech last night that opened up an embarrassing can of worms for Trump and makes me think Ossoff might have the juice. One of the most effective aspects of the Kamala Harris campaign, which they should have leaned way harder into, was Tim Walz calling Republicans weird little freaks in his TV interviews. The right would call him “Tampon Tim” and obsess over the genitalia of children, and Walz would just go on TV like a normal guy and say, hey, these people are weird! The message was true and perfect, and it’s the one thing that needs to be carried forward from that campaign.
I still have my reservations about Ossoff in terms of policy. I’d love to see him get behind Medicare for All and abolishing ICE and some of the other broadly popular proposals by the left that he hasn’t been able to embrace as a Democrat in a purple state. I believe he might be able to get there in a general election. But nevertheless, I love seeing this disciplined, telegenic young senator let loose a little bit and make genuinely funny asides about things that people have been afraid to say out loud. The days of Democrats being punching bags for the right and playing by a different set of standards and rules— “when you go low, we go high” type shit—are over. The public wants someone who can fight and land satisfying blows, who feels as genuinely angry as we are, who has an edge and a sense of humor alongside their strong moral clarity with which to pounce on Trump’s 33% approval rating and galvanize the country against him. I need to see more from Jon Ossoff, but he’s starting to look pretty good.
My dream ticket for 2028 would be Ossoff and Buttigieg. A old lady can dream right! Both of these men remind me of Obama.
I would also love to see a woman as president but I don’t think that will happen any time soon.
It is so uplifting to listen to intelligent people addressing all of the important issues we are facing and not plans to gold leaf everything in sight!
Can’t say enough about how much I love this piece 😂