Good morning and welcome to the Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet on Substack, where we’re bringing you the stories you need to know now—and that we’re not afraid to publish.
The first lady of the United States is missing. There is no other way to say this. Melania Trump passed a key milestone this morning in her disappearance from public life. Since she was last seen, we have had no idea where she was, but we know that she was guarded at vast expense by the Secret Service, and if she moved anywhere, driven in a fleet of government cars, flown on a federal jet, and attended by people we pay for. We’ve got the details of the milestone she hit, and where it fits into her history of—we use the term loosely—public service. In the White House we have an astonishing account of the rise of another woman: Natalie Harp. Donald Trump’s biographer Michael Wolff is spilling more of her secrets. This one details how she moved in on Melania’s traditional territory. Also this morning, humiliating moments accumulate for Trump endorsees. We’ve got what happened to Darline Graham, and three other endorsees. And Scott Jennings’ public thirst to take Karoline Leavitt’s job gets a bit more brazen—and earns him a slap-down for hypocrisy.
Here is a thought experiment. What would happen if a Democratic president’s wife simply vanished from public life? What squeals of outrage would we hear that Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, or, let’s just go somewhere else, Jacqueline Kennedy, had not held a luncheon, addressed a group of health campaigners, welcomed children to the White House, or gone to an underprivileged school for weeks? How endless would the rending of garments, calls of calumny, and detailing of the extraordinary privileges lavished on the first lady be, from, let’s say, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, and the Fox News millionaire Greek chorus?
The thought experiment can end there. Because this morning, Melania Trump has been missing without a trace for a month. She has not been seen at the White House, on Air Force One, or even during her husband Donald Trump’s endless time parading himself on his golf courses for the entire stretch of 31 days. Annabella Rosciglione has more on this extraordinary landmark—and thanks to our visuals director Elizabeth Brockway, there is a jaw-dropping graphic that details just how little we see of the first lady.
As Melania’s sun fades, a different star rises in the West Wing: Natalie Harp. The 35-year-old blonde, who is crazy-glued to the president’s side (and may well wield the glue gun herself), is finally being scrutinized by the elite D.C. media after months of studiously ignoring her unmissable presence—unlike The Daily Beast, which has chronicled her rise assiduously. Now the Trump biographer Michael Wolff, who was the first to reveal just how Harp had inserted herself into the Trump inner circle, is disclosing even more jaw-dropping details of how important she is to Trump. He dishes to Joanna Coles how the talk among Trump’s confidantes is that Harp, who is apparently single, pushed hard into the traditional territory of the first lady, with a power grab over the East Wing that left others reeling. Harry Thompson has the details.
That’s not the only revelation about Harp this morning. There’s also details of one of the “love” letters she sent to Trump that may help explain why the Secret Service was concerned about her closeness to the head of the executive branch.
The elite media doesn’t want to talk about Natalie Harp, or why Melania is missing. This morning the Trumpy email bulletin Axios sneers that Jon Ossoff “went low” by even daring to mention Harp. But The Daily Beast believes in holding the Trump administration to account. We don’t kiss up for offers of access. We don’t crumble to the president’s goons’ juvenile insults. We’re able to stand firm because of the support of our subscribers. If you already subscribe, thank you for supporting our independent journalism. If you don’t, it couldn’t be easier to join our community, here on Substack, or at www.thedailybeast.com. And stay tuned for updates on these vital stories.
The race to be Trump’s next press secretary, after Karoline Leavitt decided enough was enough just days after praising her boss for letting her have it all, is a full-on, elbows-out, back-stabbing, opposition-researching, biting, eye-gouging, MAGA brawl. And this morning we learn that in one of the many red corners, the frontrunner Scott Jennings has been trying to pull a, forgive the pun, Trump card, with secret meetings with one of the people key to getting the job.
Jennings’ naked thirst for the job means that the most dangerous place in America is between him and a CNN camera. But his latest appearance in his campaign (which, incidentally, he is mounting while being paid by CNN) went off the rails when he was challenged by Laura Coates about his hypocrisy in attacking those who dare to ask questions about Natalie Harp.
Sen. Darline Graham really does owe it all to her brother Lindsey Graham. He adopted her when their parents died, when she was just 13 and he was 22, so that she would be able to grow up in relative security. She had political appointments in South Carolina that would be impossible to separate from his status. And when he died, his BFF Trump gifted her the rest of the term left on Graham’s Senate seat—then backed her to take a full six-year term. But Lindsey did not impart Darline with the knowledge of policy he built up over the decades. And on Tuesday night, that was brutally exposed in a debate with her primary runoff opponent, Republican Rep. Ralph Norman, when she was asked
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