As it does with pretty much everything, the Trump White House is going about the Natalie Harp controversy all wrong. It responded to a glancing blow from Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff with the usual eruptions from Trump’s ego and id. (As far as neurologists and particle physicists can deduce, the two have fused, taking up so much space in the process that Trump’s superego has been reduced to the subatomic dimensions of a quark.)
When Ossoff, who’s heavily favored for re-election in the upcoming midterms and a likely 2028 presidential candidate, remarked that Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar,” Trump’s public relations specialists responded with their typical middle-school patois. Ossoff, said Trump spokesperson Davis Ingle, “is a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says.” Trump’s customary chorus was soon echoing this sentiment.
But this barrage of umbrage boomeranged on Trump. By making such a hysterical defense of his relationship with the 35-year-old Harp, who is 45 years younger than the octogenarian president, Trump has compelled mainstream media to document that relationship, as best they can, on front pages, nightly newscasts, and every form of social media.
Thus, the American people learned that Harp’s job was to present Trump with printouts of every smidgen of praise and every questionable poll that affirmed his genius and celebrated his reign. They learned that she was constantly at his side, accompanying him on his celebrated sneak away from Air Force One to his safe plane, that she composes rough drafts of some of his social media posts, that she reportedly rode in the trunk of an SUV so she could be with him when he was compelled to appear in court, that she leaves him little notes of appreciation, that he calls her “my Natalie,” and that Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book Regime Change reports that Trump has told people that Harp is his only aide who loves him as much as his family does.
May I gently suggest that Trumpworld’s responses to Ossoff’s comment not only have brought attention to a relationship that they probably shouldn’t have highlighted, but that they’ve missed a crucial opportunity to turn a lemon into lemonade. What Trump should be doing is announcing he’s enlisting his billionaire buddies—Musk, Thiel, Bezos, Brin, Andreessen, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Oligarchs LLC—in a Warp Speed project to develop and deploy AI so that it can mass-produce Natalie Harp clones for Americans who suffer, like Trump, from levels of insecurity and fears of inferiority that only a data center–powered Harp clone can dispel, albeit at the risk of heightening the subject’s narcissism.
Demographers, social scientists, marketing experts, and gerontologists will be employed to target particular segments of the public most in need of the Natalies; if, in fact, older males do emerge as the most Natalie-susceptible segment of the electorate, then the program can be appended to Social Security, perhaps in lieu of having to raise taxes on the rich to keep Social Security funded. Of course, it’s not only seniors who might experience the kind of Trumpian insecurity that requires the tending of a Natalie, so the clones could be made available to the broader public as well.
Despite the Warp Speed nature of the program, clinical trials will have to be instituted, testing the clones’ capacity to “make the day” of recipients when compared with such widely used antidepressants as Zoloft and Wellbutrin. Moreover, for those recipients able and willing to pay for the most highly developed subtype of clone—the Super-Flex Natalie, say, available for an additional $19.99 per month, AI-powered operators are standing by—the clone’s capacity must not only exceed that of the antidepressants, but also come close to inducing the kind of megalomania that Trump enjoys (though, to be sure, his Natalie Harp prototype didn’t induce his megalomania, which was pre-existing, but merely reinforced it).
A cautionary note: The Harp clones may come with side effects. (Participants will naturally have to sign a terms of service agreement stipulating that any psychotic conduct resulting from the Natalie Program is strictly their own fault.) That said, if the Harp prototype in any way contributes to Trump’s distinctive “nostalgia diktats”—his preferences for coal, battleships, and the otherwise obsolescent phenomena he seeks to bring back—then clone recipients should be closely observed for displaying similar tendencies, like attaching tail fins to their cars or designating their bathrooms for use by specified races.
By rolling out the Harp clone program, Trump may be able to inject a new theme into Republicans’ messaging as the midterm elections approach. Right now, as Trump’s dutiful lieutenants, Republicans are running on the Iran war, the rising cost of living (the price of gas and food in particular), the tariffs, and the ICE raids. The Natalie Clone might provide them with a compelling way to change the subject.
Though the case for unveiling the Natalie Clone program is a strong one, Trump may yet be resistant to adopting it. May I further suggest, then, that his family business invest in the project, guaranteeing it a share of the profits when each and every clone is sold to fellow Americans in their pursuit of happiness.
