August 17, 2026
You know what Americans are talking about at their kitchen tables right now? The grocery bill that somehow hit triple digits for two bags of basics. Gas prices. Health insurance premiums that jumped by double digits this year — some ACA enrollees are paying north of 25% more for the benchmark plan, and employer costs are climbing at the fastest clip in years. Healthcare has now overtaken food, rent, and utilities as the thing voters name first when you ask them about the affordability crisis.
You know what the President of the United States is talking about? Nothing, apparently. He’s golfing. He’s building his ballroom. And he’s travelling everywhere — everywhere — with a 35-year-old aide named Natalie Harp.
That’s where Steve Schmidt and I picked things up on this week’s Dead Air, live on Substack with the Save America Network. And folks, we had material.
If you haven’t been following the Natalie Harp saga, buckle up, because it’s the strangest subplot in American politics — and this is a crowded field.
Harp is a former One America News host who attached herself to Trump’s orbit years ago and never let go. During the 2024 campaign, staff nicknamed her “the human printer” because she literally carried a portable printer around to hand Trump hard copies of flattering news stories and social media posts. She reportedly runs his Truth Social account late into the night. She’s in the Oval Office meetings. She’s at the golf club on the weekends. Her own estranged brother has publicly called her bond with the president “very unhealthy.”
And here’s the detail that turned this from palace-intrigue gossip into an actual story: when Trump secretly swapped planes leaving Turkey last month over an alleged Iranian threat — sneaking off Air Force One on a catering cart, no less — he left cabinet members and the press pool behind on the decoy jet. Marco Rubio? Left behind. Stephen Miller? Left behind. Natalie Harp? On the escape flight, seated with the tiny inner circle.
Maggie Haberman, who has covered Trump longer than anyone and broke the plane-switch story, went on TV and described Harp as Trump’s “human binkie.” That’s the New York Times’ senior Trump whisperer, on the record, comparing the President’s emotional-support aide to a pacifier.
Steve’s read on it was the one that stuck with me: this isn’t really a story about Natalie Harp. It’s a story about an isolated, checked-out 80-year-old president who has replaced governing with comfort objects — the ballroom, the golf, the flattery pipeline, the loyal aide with the printer full of good news — while the country he’s supposed to be running gets squeezed from every direction. The Harp stuff is the symptom. The absentee presidency is the disease.
Which brings us to the man of the hour. Jon Ossoff is in the fight of his political life in Georgia this November, and instead of running scared, he’s out on the trail treating Trump like a piñata — and connecting every swing back to costs and corruption.
At his Atlanta rally this weekend, Ossoff torched Trump for sleeping through meetings, golfing, and trading stocks while sailors fight his war — and then delivered the line that broke the internet, saying Trump would rather “travel with Natalie” on his defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar than actually do the job.
The crowd lost it. The clip went everywhere. Democrats who’ve spent a decade bringing policy papers to a knife fight watched a 39-year-old senator find the soft spot and drive a thumb into it. Even Michigan’s Mallory McMorrow jumped in online with a perfectly deadpan “Ok I’ll bite. Who’s Natalie.”
And Trump? He took the bait, of course. Asked about it in the Oval Office, he compared Ossoff to Pee-wee Herman and grumbled that he’d “much rather do other things” — which, as Steve pointed out, is maybe the single most honest thing this president has said about the job. He’d rather do other things. Sir, we noticed.
Look, Steve and I had fun with this — how could you not? But the reason Ossoff’s attack lands isn’t the gossip. It’s the contrast.
Families are putting groceries on credit cards to cover health insurance premiums. Enhanced ACA subsidies expired, Medicaid got cut, and millions of people are paying dramatically more for coverage — or dropping it entirely. Tariffs are baked into the price of everything. That’s the reality on the ground.
And against that backdrop, the president’s most visible priorities are a gold ballroom, a Qatari jet, his golf handicap, and keeping his human printer within arm’s reach. Ossoff isn’t inventing a caricature. He’s just narrating what everyone can see.
That’s manna from political heaven — not just for Georgia, but for every Democrat who’s been searching for the language to describe this presidency. The formula isn’t complicated: you’re getting crushed, and he doesn’t care, because he’d rather be doing other things. He said so himself.
Steve and I will keep pulling on this thread. Something tells me Natalie’s not going anywhere — and neither are we.
Dead Air with Steve Schmidt is a Substack Live exclusive with the Save America Network. Subscribe, share, and come yell at us in the comments.
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