Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff is, for the moment anyway, the Democratic Party’s living legend in effective rhetoric. And he struck a hell of a nerve just by stating the obvious: Trump, he said, “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.”

On its face, that statement is difficult for any sentient political observer, right or left, to disagree with. It has been obvious for months that Trump would much rather spend his days on his Bob the Builder projects, take a few public naps, and spend the wee hours exulting and giggling over racist memes and AI renderings of himself as Genghis Khan or Jesus – delivered by Natalie Harp, the woman his own staff calls his “Binky,” his security blanket.

Even Forbes, The Capitalist Tool, noticed, publishing a story headlined, “Natalie Harp Seen Everywhere With Trump Lately.”

Meanwhile, his lawfully wedded spouse of two decades hasn’t been spotted anywhere, let alone anywhere near him, for almost a month.

Cat’s away, mice will play! Oops…

But the right has gone crazy. Scandalized pearl-clutching all around!

Trump himself feebly insulted Ossoff, calling him Pee-wee Herman. His allies, however, rushed to the defense of his chivalry and Harp’s honor in a ferocious eruption of performative hypocrisy.

Megyn “blood coming out of her wherever” Kelly went to the mat – figuratively, if not literally – for the disgusting cad.Kelly was joined in moral outrage by the whole gang, playing the same tune in concert, like the Philharmonic, from Newt Gingrich – who famously discussed his divorce papers with his hospitalized wife – to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who, like Kelly, accused Ossoff of “sexism.”

Mentioning in a political speech that the President is spending time with “Natalie” is apparently a level of offense above that of mainstream journalists quoting solid White House sources claiming Harp is so devoted to Trump that she:

• Slept in a Trump golf club locker room for a summer rather than be exiled from his glorious presence.

• Left him mash notes that alarmed even his devoted chief of staff, including, “You are all that matters to me,” “I don’t ever want to let you down,” and “I want to bring you joy.”

• Was one of the chosen ones invited aboard the sneaky Presidential food cart on the tarmac in Ankara, conveying him away from possible harm, leaving reporters and Cabinet members behind as live decoys for the Iranians Israel had promised were coming to get him.

• Apparently reads him to sleep at night with racist and sexist memes and conspiracy theories he can push out on “Trump Social.”

• Inspired the White House nickname “Binky,” because, as the Times’ Maggie Haberman said, “She is sort of his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket.”

As we noted almost a year ago in The Body Horror of the Trump Years, after that tense weekend during which Trump disappeared, a brown something was seen tossed out of the White House residence window, and rumors were rife that he was dead or dying at Walter Reed:

The MAGA movement has undeniable aspects of body horror, a subgenre of horror that involves grotesque degeneration, mutation, or transformation of the human body … The doddering old man’s body is metaphor for the ghastly corrupting effect he has had on our country: a decade-long descent of our public discourse into profane spectacle, the jettisoning of common decency and empathy in favor of rudeness and cruelty, the daily rituals of public humiliation, open racism and sexism, and the craven terror of the disfigured Republican Party.

Natalie Harp’s arrival in Trumpworld is itself body-horror adjacent. She emerged, fully formed as a useful political prop, out of California around 2018, when she first tweeted support for Trump. The following year, she appeared on Fox and Friends, claiming she had a bone cancer that standard chemo was not helping. She credited Trump’s “Right to Try” law with giving her access to an experimental treatment that supposedly saved her life. (Her story has been convincingly challenged, but letting facts get in the way of a good political story is not the MAGA way.)

Trump, watching his favorite show, was enchanted by the Ivanka-Marla lookalike Liberty University graduate. He soon invited her onstage at one of his speeches. Before long, she was on national alt-right fake-news TV, spouting Bible verses and eventually Big Lie election trash as an anchor on OAN. She also landed a coveted speaking slot at the 2020 Republican convention.

By the summer of 2024, she was bunking in the locker room at the Trump National Golf Course Bedminster, so as to not let too much daylight get between her and The Donald. Melania was said to be irked and the staff alarmed, but nothing put a dent in her clutch behavior, least of all the object of her devotion.

Last week, Michael Wolff shared one of his best Inside Trump’s Brain reflections on Instagram, challenging one of the anti-Trump world’s most cherished certainties: the ubiquitous meme that Trump wears a diaper. Wolff is convinced it isn’t true, and there is little reason to doubt his access to Trumpworld insiders; the Epstein files made that crystal clear. He blames our universal attachment to the Trump diaper on a psychological syndrome that afflicts us all: the utter disbelief that obese, vituperative, rambling Trump “exists at all – an 80 year old man who lives on junk food and has never exercised a day in his life.”

As Wolff put it, we are riveted by the survival of this visibly decaying man: “How is that possible?”

The diaper, in other words, is less a medical claim than a tangible symptom of the Body Horror of Trump. And it is indeed horror. The kind that sticks.

Which is why Ossoff’s comment so unnerved the Red Team.

I am not alone in sharing this piece of feminine wisdom, dear Freakshow fans: There is no ladylike sensibility in the nation that doesn’t recoil at the thought of those giant, swollen, bruised paws coming anywhere near a young one’s flesh. And there is not a woman alive whose stomach doesn’t churn in unison with that of any young woman – even a devotee there by choice – confronting those flaccid turkey giblets (to steal a metaphor from the poet Anne Sexton), let alone interacting with that in any way.

Ossoff didn’t need to spell anything out. He didn’t need an allegation, a punchline, or even an adjective. He just said “Natalie” and everybody filled in the blanks of their own volition.

That is also what makes the ensuing Republican outrage so spectacularly funny. The party that has coalesced around a decaying, profane misogynist – who introduced America to the coarsest level of political discourse and misbehavior toward women in living memory – accusing a Democrat of gutter politics for simply mentioning the name of a woman constantly at the president’s side is one of the best laughs of Summer 2026.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Nina Burleigh is a journalist, author, documentary producer, and adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She has written eight books including her recently published novel, Zero Visibility Possible.

Reprinted with permission from American Freakshow