“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough highlighted how the White House’s “bizarre overreaction” to Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-Ga.) dig at President Donald Trump’s close relationship with his aide Natalie Harp is actually backfiring.
“They have given Jon Ossoff three days, three days of coverage all across not just social media, but mainstream media,” Scarborough said on Tuesday, adding, “It just doesn’t really make any sense.”
The MAGA fanbase erupted after Ossoff tore into the president’s handling of multiple issues in a speech on Sunday, including the war in Iran and the chaos aboard the USS Lincoln.
However, what seemed to infuriate the White House the most was the attack on Trump’s close relationship with Harp, who reportedly wrote in one letter to him, “You are all that matters to me,” and spent her birthday with him at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course.
Trump “doesn’t want to do the job” of president, Ossoff said at Sunday’s rally. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
Reacting to the speech, White House spokesperson Davis R. Ingle called Ossoff “a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama,” and communications director Steven Cheung joined in, labeling the Georgia senator “Jon Jackoff.”
The White House’s Rapid Response account also lashed out at CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes, who confronted Trump during a tense Oval Office gaggle about North Korea and apparently asked him about Ossoff’s Harp comment as well.
“If they didn’t like Jon Ossoff’s speech, this is the Trump team being trumped,” Scarborough said, later telling co-host Willie Geist that the White House is “actually giving John Ossoff exactly what he wants — and that is more publicity.”
“It gives another day of oxygen to this. And again, in these telltale signs, you can see that he’s under the skin of the White House,” Geist agreed.
“Ossoff has the attention of this president and the attention of this White House, as they’re using their testosterone-based attacks, which have become very bizarre,” he said.