At a Sunday rally in Atlanta, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., delivered an attack on President Donald Trump and Republican challenger Mike Collins. He framed this year’s Georgia Senate race as a referendum on the Trump administration’s record. Ordinary political discourse.
The speech was a substantive, factual and persuasive rebuttal of Trump and his administration. The Jewish senator even threw in little pieces of Black Church preaching in his speech: “Atlanta, turn to your neighbor and say, “Eight weeks.” Say, “Lock in.”
“Lock in,” he said, “because the country is counting on us, Atlanta. The country is counting on us.”
Yet within 10 hours, the story changed from Ossoff’s speech to the response of Trump and MAGA about an entirely different element. The substance of the speech was overwhelmed by a coordinated attack from the White House and a horde of MAGA outrage producers. One statement in the speech became the conduit for exploding outrage.
Ossoff, toward the end of the speech, said: “And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, 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. And above all — above all — Donald wants to get money.”
Natalie, of course, is Natalie Harp — the ubiquitous young White House staffer always seen at Trump’s side and dubbed by White House insiders as “the human printer.” She is both the purveyor of Trump’s social media presence and the interpreter of others’ social media posts to the president.
Donald Trump and aide Natalie Harp exit Marine One on the Ellipse near the White House on August 16, 2026. . (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
Ossoff’s speech deserves attention for the way he takes apart what has gone wrong in the Trump administration: “Our government made a tool of one man’s vengeance, power and wealth.” He details broken promises, high prices and the war in Iran and reminds his audience that Trump “promised peace and gave us war.”
Ossoff made no untruthful statements, threw no wild accusations or derogatory attacks. He simply stated facts. And the initial reporting from the speech followed that lead. For example, Zachary Bynum of CBS News, reported, “Ossoff rallies Atlanta, targets Trump and Collins as Georgia US Senate race intensifies.” And Alani Letang’s headline for MSN: “Ossoff rallies supporters in Georgia as Senate race enters final months.”
Trump and his allies didn’t go after Ossoff for that so much as they lost their minds over Ossoff daring to mention the oddity of Harp’s sycophantic omnipresence.
“Trump and his allies lost their minds over Ossoff daring to mention the oddity of Harp’s sycophantic omnipresence.”
Natalie Harp, a California native and Liberty University graduate, has been an anchor on the far-right news network OAN and a political consultant. Now the 35-year-old is an indispensable member of Trump’s inner circle.
Harp reportedly is the source of Trump’s after-midnight Truth Social posts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Harp was responsible for a video that showed former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, as well as an AI-generated photo depicting Trump as Jesus.
She has been labeled the “human printer” because she carries a small printer with her at all times to print out press coverage of the president and show him. Trump has called her “a young, beautiful woman.” She accompanies Trump everywhere, including his recent trip to Turkey (the subject of Ossoff’s remarks).
That Ossoff would dare to even imply there’s something odd about Trump’s relationship with and dependence on Harp set MAGA tongues wagging. How dare he imply a convicted sexual predator be questioned about hanging out 24/7 with a young female staffer!
The defenders of Dear Leader jumped on the attack:
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung at the White House, July 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Ossoff “has to be the biggest … loser in politics” and called the senator “Jon Jackoff” and branded him a “cuck loser.”
There’s not one shred of evidence Ossoff is a loser — even though that’s one of Trump’s favorite epithets to throw about.
Cheung blasted out, “Instead of denigrating hard-working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he’s a miserable person who hates this country.”
The president couldn’t even work up a full-blown rant about Ossoff so he pulled out an old favorite, the nasty nickname: “You mean Pee-wee Herman?”
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle called Ossoff a “cringeworthy, feminine theater kid cosplaying as Barack Obama.”
Ingle also wrote on X, “Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says.”
Trump apologist Tim Murtaugh spouted on X: “Jon @ossoff subjects an innocent female staffer, a bone cancer survivor who credits President Trump’s Right to Try legislation for saving her life, to the oldest and most vulgar innuendo there is, simply because she’s at work seemingly all the time. Ossoff should apologize.”
Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer shouted: “I never really knew what to think about Ossoff. He seemed a backbencher who played it safe. Now I see he’s a bottom feeder. Who does this and holds their head high? Who accuses women of behaving like that because he doesn’t like their boss. This guy should be ashamed.”
Political satirist Jeff Tiedrich said in his Tuesday morning email: “It’s pretty weird how every Republican immediately interpreted ‘travel together’ to mean that Donny and Nattie are getting it on, isn’t it? This sounds like another one of those ‘every accusation is a confession’ things again, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. Republicans have eyes. they can see what’s going on. They know how bad this looks, President Pussygrabber swanning around with some blonde half his age, while his Slovenian green-card rent-a-wife is nowhere to be seen.”
Apparently Trump’s evangelical supporters haven’t taught him about the “Billy Graham Rule” of men in leadership not being left alone with women other than their wives lest the chattering class chatter.
“The irony, of course, is that our current-day crude political commentary was invented by Trump himself.”
The irony, of course, is that our current-day crude political commentary was invented by Trump himself. He has been the change agent. He has added multiple layers of untruthful, often incoherent claims, threats and character attacks. He whips his crowds into a frenzy with, what Patrick Healy and Maggie Hagerman describe as “the constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery American presidents rarely use.”
The purpose of political discourse in the age of Trump is anger and outrage. Political communication previously attempted to persuade people with reason, rational thought and persuasive appeals. Trump is a bundle of emotions with no filters. He and his cohorts attempt to make voters become outraged every day over a new target.
Last week it was Anthony Fauci and Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. This week it’s Jon Ossoff — who has been lambasted not for the substantive criticisms of the Trump administration’s failures but for even mildly suggesting Trump has an unnatural dependence on a young female staffer.
Here’s my take: MAGA and Trump have a charismatic leadership relationship. On the part of MAGA there is acquiescence and submission, and on the part of Trump pure authoritarianism. Since the two are essentially one, all kinds of critical evidence (he has a strange relationship with Natalie) can be dismissed with a wave of a MAGA hand.
No admission can ever be made of a flaw in the leader because the relationship would be permanently frayed. There can be no quarter given to criticism even when it is of the mild variety. Trump must be seen as better than all critics.
Ossoff has to be attacked, discredited with the use of lies, incoherent accusations, fantastical narratives and lurid, demeaning words approaching defamation of character. No one can speak ill of Trump no matter how offensive and bigoted he may be.
Remember outrage language points to weakness. MAGA exposes a vulnerability to truth, reason and facts when the outrage gets out of control. Please notice the emotional excess of outrage rhetoric and use the weakness to speak the truth.
I didn’t know Ossoff hit a major MAGA nerve until I read the outrage reports.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.