President Donald Trump and his cronies in the White House have incredibly sunk to an unbelievably new low, critics accuse, after Trump didn’t like a question from a reporter.
Trump staffers not only lashed out at her on social media, but they went after her children, too.
It started after Sen. Jon Ossoff heavily criticized Trump in a speech Sunday in Atlanta. The Georgia Democrat said the president is more concerned with building ballrooms, trips with White House aides, and playing golf than with being president.
During a press gaggle in the Oval Office the next day, Monday, CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes landed on the wrong side of Trump with a pointed question.
“Jon Ossoff said you’d rather travel with your aide Natalie Harp than build the ballroom and do your job as president. What is your response to Jon Ossoff?” Holmes asked.
“You mean Pee Wee Herman?” Trump responded, using what he thinks is his derogatory nickname for Ossoff. Plenty of Herman fans have taken offense at the president’s crudity.
“Pee Wee Herman look-alike. Ah, no, I would much rather do other things. We’re building a great facility here. We’re fixing a White House that hasn’t been taken care of,” Trump claimed, getting in a last zinger at Ossoff.
But he was secretly enraged by Holmes’ question.
A few hours later on the White House’s Rapid Response 47 X account, Trump’s communications team called her “disgraceful and a humiliating embarrassment.”
“@KristenhCNN is a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.” They accused her of using the question “as an opportunity to take a cheap shot about one of President Trump’s staffers.”
The post concluded with, “These scumbags are the lowest of the low.”
The staffer in question is Trump aide Natalie Harp. Harp, along with a couple other Trump staffers, ditched Air Force One after a summit in Turkey in early July. They were secretly whisked off the plane in a meal catering truck to a waiting military jet.
It happened after the security team reacted to what the administration has called a “credible” threat to Trump from Iran. Administration officials, an unwitting press corps, and security personnel onboard then flew aboard Air Force One as a decoy flight to England. Trump then secretly reboarded the plane in order to disembark as usual from Air Force One once at the destination.
But a seething Trump wasn’t done with Holmes. Just over a half hour later, the White House posted another subtly ominous post by mentioning her children and calling her question “disgusting and inhumane.”
“@KristenhCNN Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”
Social media exploded in outrage, especially over the post mentioning Holmes’ children. The CNN reporter has a 4-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.
Journalist Jim Acosta, a former longtime Holmes colleague, had some choice words for Trump staffers.
“The only people who should be sickened and embarrassed are the staffers who operate this account. It is never acceptable for government employees to go after a reporter’s children in this disgraceful fashion,” an infuriated Acosta wrote on his Substack page the next day.
“But, of course, these White House employees work for Trump. As I like to say, it’s another day that ends in Y. So, they will do this again, and again. And again. There is no bottom. There is no worst. Until they finally go and this is all over,” he added.
Former Trump White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews agreed.
“What the actual f-ck is wrong with this White House invoking @KristenhCNN’s children for simply asking the President to respond to an attack from a Democratic senator?” an indignant Matthews posted on X.
“This response is infinitely more callous and vindictive than her perfectly legitimate question. Everyone who has worked in Trump 2.0 should be sickened and embarrassed to be part of this disgusting and inhumane administration.”
Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger joined in. “She’s way classier than any of you.”
X user The System addressed the elephant in the room. “So what’s the deal with Natalie Harp then? You seem pretty defensive.”
Harp’s estranged brother recently told The Daily Mail that his sister’s devotion to Trump is “very unhealthy.” Preston Harp also called the president a “national embarrassment.”
This X commenter may have said it best.
“You know journalists are doing their job when they trigger the fascists.”
