Sen. Jon Ossoff defended his decision this week to invoke the name of high-ranking Trump aide Natalie Harp during a recent speech ― a move that has publicly enraged the president and allegedly unnerved some aides concerned about the apparent closeness of the two.

Harp became the center of attention after Ossoff named her in a jab against President Donald Trump on Sunday. The Georgia senator told a crowd that instead of fulfilling the responsibilities of the presidency, Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

Ossoff doubled down on his position Monday when asked by Jen Psaki on MS NOW why he decided to bring up the Trump-obsessed Christian ex-TV host, who was reportedly one of just three aides brought inside a secret aircraft that whisked the president away from Turkey amid reports Air Force One was at risk of being shot down by Iran.

“We’re in wartime. The commander in chief has mired us in this geopolitical disaster. People have lost their lives. Our naval logistics are frayed. The global energy system is in crisis,” Ossoff told Psaki. “And he retreats into this bubble of West Wing aides who are his security blanket to make him feel good about himself, to reassure him that he’s doing a great job, to help him while he designs his new ballroom.”

“And just like the West Wing is full of sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear and enable him, so is the United States Congress,” he continued.

The comments by Ossoff, a presidential hopeful, about Harp have infuriated the White House and president, with the latter calling the senator a “Pee-wee Herman look-alike” while communications director Steven Cheung called him “the biggest cuck loser in politics.”

“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” the White House’s rapid response X account wrote to CNN reporter Kristen Holmes on Monday after she asked the president to comment on Ossoff’s remarks.

But the mention of Harp has allegedly also privately struck a nerve among those in and close to the White House, Semafor reported on Tuesday, and has even sparked unfounded rumors of a relationship. Citing information on background, the outlet said part of the White House’s aggressive defense is because “the first lady doesn’t like these types of things.”

“Natalie Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump’s team,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told HuffPost in response to the Semafor article, calling Ossoff “Lightweight Jon” and a “feminine theatre kid” whose “rhetoric is cringeworthy.”

“It’s fair for people to point out the fact that this is an aide who has the ear of the president, who alarmed Secret Service because of her obsession with him and the fact that she would leave him love notes saying things like, ‘You’re all that matters to me,’” Trump’s former White House spokesperson Sarah Matthews said on CNN, referring to a “series of devotional letters” revealed in 2024 by The New York Times.

Matthews said Harp’s behavior and her closeness to Trump alarmed his 2024 campaign staff as well, claiming the aide was dead-set on staying at the president’s Bedminster golf club while they were on the campaign trail.

“They wouldn’t give her a room because even campaign staff recognized that it was a weird relationship between the two,” she said. “So what did Natalie Harp do? She found a workaround. She stayed in the women’s locker room all summer long. So I think it’s fair to point out the sycophancy of her in particular, and their close relationship.”

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