Last weekend, one first name was enough to send Washington into the gutter. At a campaign rally, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff claimed that Donald Trump did not want to do his job but would rather build a ballroom and “travel with Natalie”. Everyone knew he meant Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old executive assistant almost constantly seen at the president’s side. Ossoff never alleged an affair. He supplied the insinuation and allowed the crowd to fill in the blanks. Axios accurately summed up the episode as a test of Democrats’ appetite for “going low”.
The media accepted the invitation. The New York Times described Harp as “sylphlike” and a “platinum blonde geyser of positivity” whose eyes remain fixed on the president. Rolling Stone declared that nothing about Trump and Harp was normal. Salon recast her as a babysitter nursing Trump through his decline and even speculated about the contents of the bag she carries.
The Daily Beast announced a secret power struggle between Harp and Melania Trump. CNN invited Harp’s estranged brother to characterize her devotion as an “unhealthy obsession”, while private letters were published in which she called Trump her “Guardian and Protector”. No publication needed to call her Trump’s mistress outright. Her age, hair color, emotional letters and Melania’s absence were enough to invite the insinuation.
