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The Trump administration blasted liberal journalist Aaron Rupar on Saturday after he highlighted White House executive assistant Natalie Harp accompanying President Donald Trump on his trip to Ireland, extending weeks of scrutiny surrounding the 35-year-old aide that began after Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff invoked her name during a campaign speech.
The White House-run Rapid Response 47 account responded directly after Rupar posted a photo of Harp during the president’s trip and captioned it, “Look who made the trip to Ireland!” with his recurring #TravelWithNatalie hashtag.
“President Trump does, in fact, travel with staff. Aaron, on the other hand, is a sick, deluded freak (in his 40s) who sits behind a keyboard and posts creepy things like this,” the account shared.
The White House blasted liberal journalist Aaron Rupar as a “sick, deluded freak” over his repeated posts about Trump aide Natalie Harp traveling with the president. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
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Rupar has repeatedly highlighted Harp’s appearances alongside Trump in recent weeks and used #TravelWithNatalie, including posts about her traveling with the president and one referring to what he called Trump’s “gigantic diaper bag.” His focus followed Osoff’s remark last month that propelled the White House staffer into extensive cable-news coverage.
“The taxpayer-funded White House incitement account is now attacking me for [checks notes] being in my 40s”, shared on X in response to the Rapid Response 47 post.
NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham told Digital on Sunday that Rupar’s continued use of the travel reference was deliberately playing off the controversy generated by Ossoff’s original remark.
“Rupar knows he is trolling for the Trump haters. The whole ‘travels with Natalie’ line is toying with the original Ossoff affair smear,” Graham said.
Rupar’s posts about Natalie revived scrutiny surrounding Harp after Sen. Jon Ossoff’s earlier remark about President Trump traveling with the White House aide. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
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The attention surrounding Harp began after Sen. Ossoff, D-Ga., invoked her by first name while criticizing Trump during a campaign speech. Conservatives interpreted Ossoff’s remarks as insinuating an inappropriate relationship between Trump and Harp, an interpretation Ossoff later rejected.
Ossoff made the reference while accusing Trump of being more interested in personal pursuits than carrying out presidential duties.
“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 said.
NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham told Digital that Rupar’s “travels with Natalie” posts were “toying with the original Ossoff affair smear.” (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
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Digital reached out to Rupar, the White House and Ossoff for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Ossoff later faced questions from MS Now host Jen Psaki about why he specifically named Harp. He denied suggesting an affair and instead said his reference was about the advisors surrounding Trump.
“Well, I’ve heard this particular aide referred to as his security blanket, and I think we could say that about any number of the senior aides in the White House,” Ossoff said.
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The White House responded forcefully to Ossoff’s initial remarks, defending Harp as one of Trump’s top aides.
“Natalie Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump’s team. Jon Ossoff is a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a s— what this lightweight loser says,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to Digital.
In August, Digital reported that CNN and MS NOW had mentioned Harp hundreds of times in the days following Ossoff’s remarks, after CNN alone had mentioned her at least 132 times by Aug. 19.
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Graham previously told Digital that the coverage surrounding Harp was failing to address what he considered the “fundamental question” about why her routine presence alongside the president had become a major media story.
