Natalie Harp worked at White House without security clearance for nearly a year – report
Natalie Harp, special assistant to Donald Trump, continues to be the focus of media attention Thursday after an MS Now report revealed that she had worked at the White House for nearly a year without obtaining a security clearance.
Harp, a former One America News Network show host, has emerged as a key gatekeeper to the president. Her presence with Trump when the president left Air Force One as a decoy while sneaking on to another plane in a service cart – even as senior officials remained behind – drew attention.
Jon Ossoff, a Democratic senator from Georgia, amplified that attention with comments at a rally Sunday in Atlanta. Speaking of Trump, Ossoff said: “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.”
A clip of his commentary went viral on social media, drawing attacks from the president’s defenders.
White House communications director Steven Cheung posted in reply on X: “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” while White House spokesman Davis Ingle posted, “Jon Ossoff is a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says.”
Ossoff marveled at the reaction to his observations in an interview Wednesday with Laurence O’Donnell on MS Now. “It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week,” Ossoff said. “These White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer with immense power in positions of public trust. And whether it’s Natalie Harp printing out Donald Trump’s daily dose of delusion and flattery, or Peter Navarro steering taxpayer-funded loans to Trump family investments, or Pete Hegseth deluding the president daily into deepening this quagmire in the Middle East, no one cares about their feelings.”
The pile on continues: Rosie O’Donnell, a longstanding Trump antagonist filling in Wednesday night for Jimmy Kimmel, picked at the topic.
“That’s all I’m going to say about you tonight, sweetheart,” O’Donnell said of Trump. ”You got to realize it’s time to hang up your wig and let Natalie tuck you in. Time to go nighty-night!”
Key events
DNC sues DOJ over unanswered FOIA requests regarding ballot seizures
The Democratic National Committee has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration today “over its failure to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking records about any plans to seize ballots in the midterm elections”.
“Following the seizure of archived ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, the DNC sent requests for records to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice regarding seizure of ballots, voting machines, and other voting system components,” the DNC said in a press release. “Nearly five months later, the DNC has not received a single responsive document, in clear violation of FOIA. This lawsuit comes as Trump is publicly musing about declaring an emergency to attempt to take over the midterm elections.
“The DNC previously sued the Trump administration for refusing to provide records regarding any plans to deploy federal agents or troops to polling places, drop boxes, and election offices in upcoming elections and won a court order forcing the administration to produce thousands of pages.
“The DNC filed the FOIA requests to inform the public and prepare for any legal actions needed to protect Americans’ right to vote and to protect the security, transparency, and integrity of elections across the country. The DNC will continue holding the administration accountable and demanding they not subvert or undermine the will of the voters.”
DNC chair Ken Martin said in a statement:
Donald Trump is historically unpopular and doing everything he can to subvert our elections this November – which is why we’re suing his administration once again. In our ongoing fight to protect free and fair elections, the DNC is holding Trump and his cronies accountable for their continued threats to our democracy. Whether in court or at the ballot box, we will stand with voters and defend them from Trump’s attempts to suppress their voices.
‘Maybe, maybe not’: Michael Cohen declines to say if he’ll use his Trump interview to seek a pardon
Donald Trump has given a radio interview to none other than Michael Cohen, his former longtime personal fixer turned fierce critic, after an apparent reconciliation set the stage for their first public conversation in eight years.
Their exchange, recorded earlier today and due to be broadcast on 77WABC at 6pm ET, amounts to an extraordinary twist in the pair’s relationship.
Cohen once had such a tight relationship with Trump that he described himself back in the day as his “attack dog with a law license”, but later became the star witness in Trump’s 2024 criminal trial over his hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in an effort to interfere with the 2016 election.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on charges related to hush-money payments on Trump’s behalf to help conceal the affair with Daniels, including campaign finance violations, tax evasion and bank fraud, as well as lying to Congress. He spent more than a year behind bars and the rest of his sentence in home confinement. He was also disbarred in New York. He later started a podcast and wrote books devoted to fierce criticism of Trump.
Cohen’s tune changed shortly after Trump returned to office, stating publicly in January last year that he felt “pressured and coerced” by federal prosecutors during the hush-money trial. Now, Trump will appear on the New York City radio show that Cohen began hosting last month.
Asked last night by Politico if during the phone interview he and the president would discuss presidential clemency for the conviction that landed Cohen a three-year prison sentence, Cohen replied:
We’ll see. Will I make that request down the road? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.
Scott Jennings reportedly pushing for White House press secretary role
And speaking of Karoline Leavitt, Scott Jennings is pushing to replace her as White House press secretary when she departs at the end of the month, Politico reported this morning.
Per Politico’s Dasha Burns: “After clips of Jennings defending Natalie Harp made their way around the WH – including some he sent to senior staffers himself – he reached out to schedule a private meeting with [White House chief of staff] Susie Wiles over the weekend, a person close to the WH told me.
“No decision was made and no offer extended. The process to replace Leavitt remains slow-moving.”
CNN is also reporting that Jennings has emerged as an early frontrunner to take over in the role – with the caveat that its sources “stressed that the process is far from complete” – and met Wiles recently at Mastro’s Steakhouse in Washington DC at the request of the White House.
Multiple staffers told CNN they believe Jennings has her backing, but others pushed back on that claim and said Wiles plans to meet several other potential contenders before making any decisions.
Jennings, CNN’s most prominent pro-Trump commentator and longtime conservative strategist, previously served in the George W Bush administration and an adviser to GOP senator Mitch McConnell.
Asked if he wants the job, Jennings told Politico: “I don’t have anything to say about that.”
Further to that, Trump’s outgoing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not issue a flat-out denial of its report that Natalie Harp resisted applying for security clearance for months before eventually relenting after pressure from White House staff.
When asked for comment by MS NOW, Leavitt said: “Natalie Harp has a security clearance like everyone else, and she is a loyal and hardworking member of President Trump’s team.”
Allegations over Natalie Harp’s lack of security clearance ‘deadly serious’ if true, says former senior adviser to Obama
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, has expressed concern over the Natalie Harp affair, responding to reports (which the Guardian has not verified) that she resisted applying for security clearance on X:
If this story is true, and the person closest to the @POTUS and his thinking on a daily basis has no security clearance and refuses to submit to the process of getting it, it’s a deadly serious issue.
MS NOW reported that Harp, Donald Trump’s closest aide, declined several times over more than a year to apply for the routine security clearance normally obtained by West Wing staffers to work at the White House, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The people did not know Harp’s reasons for declining to complete the process. “After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president himself intervened, and Harp in recent months filled out the forms to launch a formal federal background investigation and received the clearance,” MS NOW reported.
The state department has declared that Min Zin, an American scholar arrested in China during an academic trip is being wrongfully detained.
The announcement “follows an extensive review of the circumstances surrounding his 3 June detention in Yunnan, China, where Zin had traveled to attend an academic conference at the invitation of the Chinese government,” the state department release says. “There are now two wrongfully detained U.S. citizens in China: Mr. Zin and Dr. Youlin Chen.”
The Chinese government arrested Zin, a US scholar who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy in June for “espionage activities.” Zin had visited China many times before without incident, according to Burmese activists. Zin was a student activist in Myanmar during the pro-democracy movement in 1988. He later sought asylum in the US.
His arrest follows that of Youlin Chen, a seismologist arrested in 2024 by the Chinese government. Chen’s research includes how to detect underground nuclear tests using seismological data. Advocates for his freedom believe the Chinese government may be trying to determine the extent of America’s ability to detect an underground nuclear test.
The Democratic National Committee has narrowed its finalist cities to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention to Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. The convention is scheduled to take place from 7-10 August 2028, with a final city selection expected later in the year.
Chicago and Atlanta are a little salty about that.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens expressed some irritation at hearing about the finalist selection from the news. He blasted the DNC in a letter Thursday, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.
“For the DNC to not even include Atlanta in the shortlist means that the DNC does not consider Atlanta or Georgia relevant to the past, present, or future of the Democratic Party,” Dickens said, adding, “They are afraid to leave their comfort zone and blind to the fact that the South is the answer. They are abandoning Atlanta, abandoning the South, and once again abandoning Black voters.”
Emily Soong, spokesperson for the Chicago 2028 Bid Committee, said that “Chicago is proud to have hosted the best Democratic National Convention in history, and we were honored to raise our hand once again to be considered for 2028. We are deeply committed to the success of the next convention, and we are all-in to support whichever host city is selected in this process.”
Swalwell’s electronics seized and home raided by FBI – report
An FBI team seized electronic devices from former US representative Eric Swalwell at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, then raided his home in Washington, DC, the next day, CNN reported Thursday.
The raid is part of a federal investigation into the sexual assault allegations which ultimately drove the Bay Area Democrat to resign from office in April, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department subsequently opened criminal investigations on Swalwell.
The White House released damaging declassified documents this week about Swalwell’s alleged relationship with Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese spy. The documents show that Swalwell told FBI agents in 2015 that he had had “physical relations” with Fang when she was campaigning on his behalf as an unpaid volunteer in 2012. Swalwell served on the House Select Committee on Intelligence when he spoke with the FBI in 2015, and remained so through their investigation, which did not result in charges.
A report by the San Francisco Chronicle on 10 April that Swalwell sexually assaulted an ex-staffer while she was too intoxicated to consent was followed by additional CNN reporting that surfaced three other women with detailed allegations of inappropriate conduct.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson weighed in on the attention that White House aide Natalie Harp has drawn over the last week.
In the most recent edition of Richardson’s “Letters from an American” newsletter, the Boston College history professor and popular writer took note of the strident attacks the White House made on CNN reporter Kristen Holmes after she asked Trump about comments on Harp made by Jon Ossoff at an Atlanta rally Sunday.
“You could almost feel the palpable relief that the White House might be able to gin up a controversy that could rally the base, one that, for the first time in a long time, didn’t automatically show the president or the administration in a bad light,” Richardson wrote. “Undermining Ossoff, whose speeches have been a particularly sharp thorn in the administration’s side lately, appeared to be icing on the cake.”
Richardson described the reaction as a “Streisand effect,” drawing additional attention to a subject conservatives might prefer to let lie, and “manufactured outrage” which distracts from the other topics Ossoff raised in the speech – Trump’s profiteering from his service in the White House, the consequences of the Iran war and rising prices for consumers.
A White House meeting on cryptocurrency and is amplifying a spike in bitcoin values Thursday.
President Donald Trump – who disclosed $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency earnings from his family’s investments in 2025 – is pushing congress to pass the CLARITY Act, which would define cryptocurrency as a commodity and move much of its regulation to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Bitcoin – along with gold and other commodities – began rising sharply in value at 10:30 Wednesday morning when the US treasury department announced it would double its long-end bond buybacks to at least $4 billion per operation, supporting market liquidity. That set off a short squeeze in cryptocurrencies. Twenty-four hours later, bitcoin hovered around $71,500, an increase of about 10 percent in value.
“We need Congress to take the next step by passing the Clarity Act – a fair version of the Clarity Act,” Trump said in opening remarks at a summit held Wednesday on the legislation with cryptocurrency industry leaders. “It’s a very, very powerful structured legislation which will keep us ahead of China, keep us ahead of everyone else, will open the door to the next wave of innovations and innovators.”
Thursday morning, the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee held its inaugural meeting to discuss the regulation of crypto assets, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets.
“America has long been the global hub of financial innovation,” said Chairman Michael S. Selig. “I look forward to meeting with the entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee to discuss ways emerging technologies and financial products are shaping our markets as we embark upon the new frontier of finance.”
The agenda includes discussion of agentic finance and the use of AI in derivatives markets, as well as the regulation of prediction markets like Kalshi.
The CLARITY Act faces questions from the banking industry, which does not want crypto assets to be able to offer interest payments, which is seen as undermining traditional banking deposits. Lawmakers also want better protections against the use of cryptocurrency in money laundering and to restrict officials – including Trump – from conflicts of interest in the crypto industry.
James Braid departs White House ahead of midterms
James Braid, the longest-serving legislative affairs director of Trump’s presidency, is leaving the White House ahead of the midterms. Braid navigated the cabinet confirmations of controversial appointees like that of Pete Hegseth at defense and Robert Kennedy Jr. at health and human services. He also shepherded the One Big Beautiful Bill Act through a congress with historically-tight margins for Republicans, while beating back war powers resolutions.
Republican lawmakers are acknowledging his service as he exits.
“James Braid has served his country with distinction and led the White House’s Office of Legislative Affairs with extraordinary skill,” wrote Speaker Mike Johnson on X. “His great friendship, unwavering commitment, and tireless work ethic have helped House and Senate Republicans advance President Trump’s America First agenda in spite of our razor-thin majorities, and he has played an essential role in delivering historic results for the American people. We wish James, his wife Melissa, and their family all the best in their next chapter.”
Vice President JD Vance, for whom Braid worked as legislative director before joining the White house, described him in a post on X as “brilliant.”
“James Braid had one of the toughest jobs in the entire Administration as White House Legislative Director and delivered for President Trump at every turn,” Vance wrote. “He played a critical role in all of the administration’s achievements in Congress: largest tax cut ever, resources to carry out President Trump’s historic immigration agenda and finish the border wall, defeating two Democratic shutdowns, a landmark first crypto bill, the fastest confirmation of the cabinet in decades and much more.”
Trump cycled through four legislative directors in his first term. The role will shift sharply if Republicans lose control of either chamber in the midterm elections, with the White House having to work to avert government shutdowns over budget battles and congressional investigations into Trump’s operations.
His exit follows that of Pace McMullan, who worked under Braid in Senate outreach.
US unemployment claims dropped to 206,000 last week, with layoffs still sparse
The weekly Labor Department report for jobless claims dropped to 206,000 last week from a revised 212,000 the week before, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Claims typically hover between 200,000 and 230,000. The weekly jobs report is viewed as a proxy for layoff notices.
The U.S. unemployment rate of 4.1% remains near historical lows, showing resilience despite higher energy prices caused by the war with Iran. It also reflects a shrinking labor market as immigration enforcement and Baby Boomer retirement reduce the number of available workers, AP reported.
Nonetheless, about 1.3 million people have dropped out of the labor market over the past year. Hiring in 2026 remains well below the 166,000 monthly jobs created, on average, in 2023 and 2024, and the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed pandemic lockdowns.
Natalie Harp worked at White House without security clearance for nearly a year – report
Natalie Harp, special assistant to Donald Trump, continues to be the focus of media attention Thursday after an MS Now report revealed that she had worked at the White House for nearly a year without obtaining a security clearance.
Harp, a former One America News Network show host, has emerged as a key gatekeeper to the president. Her presence with Trump when the president left Air Force One as a decoy while sneaking on to another plane in a service cart – even as senior officials remained behind – drew attention.
Jon Ossoff, a Democratic senator from Georgia, amplified that attention with comments at a rally Sunday in Atlanta. Speaking of Trump, Ossoff said: “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.”
A clip of his commentary went viral on social media, drawing attacks from the president’s defenders.
White House communications director Steven Cheung posted in reply on X: “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” while White House spokesman Davis Ingle posted, “Jon Ossoff is a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says.”
Ossoff marveled at the reaction to his observations in an interview Wednesday with Laurence O’Donnell on MS Now. “It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week,” Ossoff said. “These White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer with immense power in positions of public trust. And whether it’s Natalie Harp printing out Donald Trump’s daily dose of delusion and flattery, or Peter Navarro steering taxpayer-funded loans to Trump family investments, or Pete Hegseth deluding the president daily into deepening this quagmire in the Middle East, no one cares about their feelings.”
The pile on continues: Rosie O’Donnell, a longstanding Trump antagonist filling in Wednesday night for Jimmy Kimmel, picked at the topic.
“That’s all I’m going to say about you tonight, sweetheart,” O’Donnell said of Trump. ”You got to realize it’s time to hang up your wig and let Natalie tuck you in. Time to go nighty-night!”
Michele Tafoya: from unassuming NFL sideline reporter to rightwing firebrand
Andrew Lawrence
As the third leg of NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew alongside play-by-play man Al Michaels and the tart-tongued analyst Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya was a paragon of deference and neutrality for 11 years as an NFL sideline reporter, dutifully relating boilerplate tactics, talking points and injury updates when she wasn’t nodding along to softball interviews or fumbling through hammy production gimmicks for viewers who might have been too offline to get the bit.
She was almost pathologically committed to not doing anything to draw attention to herself or her gender in an era when sideline reporting was a fast track to national celebrity. Even her football takes hewed to the middle. (“New Orleans doesn’t want to lose to Atlanta twice in a season …”) Anyone who says they saw the 61-year-old emerging as a rightwing firebrand was watching a different game.
And yet here we are. Last week, Tafoya was the decisive winner of Minnesota’s US Senate Republican primary, earning the party’s nomination for November’s general election. Even more striking: she beat back eight challengers, not least Adam Schwarze, the party-endorsed pro-gun, pro-military ex-Navy SEAL, and Royce White, the anti-leftist, anti-trans NBA flameout currently testing WNBA gender norms.
From McDonald’s to Congress: can a former fry cook flip a key district for Democrats?
Michael Sainato
During his presidential campaign in October 2024, Donald Trump staged a photo op at a McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania, where he was briefly taught how to work the fryer and drive-thru window at the closed restaurant, while making several unsubstantiated claims about Kamala Harris’s past summer job at McDonald’s.
The posturing around McDonald’s garnered significant publicity, as Trump and Republicans capitalized on an affordability crisis triggered by high inflation that occurred globally due to the Covid pandemic.
Now, as Trump’s promises to “end inflation” and bring down prices have fallen flat, a real former fry cook is hoping affordability will help him flip Colorado’s eighth congressional district, a swing district narrowly won by the Republican Gabe Evans in 2024. The district is rated a toss-up by the Cook Partisan Index, and affordability is front and center in Democratic nominee Manny Rutinel’s congressional campaign.
Iran foreign minister points to US national debt as Trump threatens ‘economic warfare’
Donald Trump on Wednesday posted that he intends to inflict on Iran “the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!”
“This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” the president said.
On Thursday, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s minister of foreign affairs posted on X screenshots from various news outlets reporting that the US national debt had reached $40tn for the first time in history.
“The so-called ‘Economic D-Day’ is a diversion from America’s own crisis: unprecedented debt and surging interest costs,” Araghchi said. “Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat — and enmity of Iranians. US economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide.”
Democrats and Republicans outraged over $40tn national debt
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
The US gross national debt reached $40tn for the first time on Wednesday, the highest in US history.
The government deficit doubled over the past decade, with government spending growing under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden – Trump approved $8.4tn worth of debt during his first term, with a large chunk going to Covid-19 relief spending, while Biden approved $4.3tn worth of debt.
In fiscal year 2026, which began in October 2025, $1.8tn has been added to the debt so far.
Both Democrats and Republicans responded to the milestone with outrage, with Democrats placing the blame on Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress for the uptick in spending.
“The President said he’d pay off the debt in his first term. Well we all knew that was a lie. Instead he ran it up to $40 trillion while he and his family made billions,” Mark Kelly, a Democratic senator from Arizona, posted on X.
“Republicans ran up the tab, handed billionaires another tax break, and now wanna lecture working families about ‘fiscal responsibility’. You can’t max out the card AND pretend you’re the accountant. Pick a struggle,” Jasmine Crockett, a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, said.
“The Republican One Big Ugly Bill adds over $4 trillion alone—all to shamefully give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations,” Jason Crow, a Democratic congressman from Colorado, posted on X.
Crow is referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will increase the deficit by $3.3tn. After Republican senator Rick Scott posted on X that “Congress needs to get spending under control”, netizens were quick to add that he had voted to pass this bill.
Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who regularly clashed with Trump and his own party as well as with his colleagues across the aisle, has long worn on his suit jacket a debt badge, a three-inch-long pin he created that updates the national debt in real time. “When I invented the debt badge, the national debt was just over $31 trillion,” he posted on X.
“$4,000 per year per American. That’s how much interest we are paying on the debt to banks & foreign countries every year. A family of four owes $16,000 per year for nothing but interest on the debt!” Massie said. “I lost my re-election because I voted against the policies that caused this.” In May, the seven-term incumbent lost the House primary to keep his seat to Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal and farmer who was recruited into the race by Trump.
Stay with us for more reaction.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/aug/20/donald-trump-national-debt-borrowing-record-michael-cohen-canada-iran-latest-news-updates
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