HAS JON OSSOFF FOUND THE SWEET SPOT WHERE MALADMINISTRATION MEETS GOSSIP?

Running for reelection in Georgia, Senator Jon Ossoff drew blood with this:

Ossoff says that Trump doesn’t want to do his job but wants to “travel with Natalie”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 16, 2026 at 6:23 PM

“While the sailors on the [USS Abraham Lincoln] fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings,” the senator told a crowd at a campaign rally. “He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie [Harp] on their apparently defenseless flying palace, gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

A hit dog will holler:

“Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” Steven Cheung, the ever-cantankerous White House communications director, posted on X. “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. It’s because he’s a radical, extremist Dumocrat.”

“Jon Ossoff is a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said on X, launching a homophobic insult at Ossoff.

This is great. Just think: a Democrat is going viral for attacking Republicans, not fellow Democrats. That never happens!

As I said earlier today on Bluesky:

I've often tried to imagine strong anti-Trump, anti-GOP messaging. Whenever I suggest a strong message, someone inevitably responds, "Yeah, but if a Democrat said that, the media wouldn't cover it." The virality of Jon Ossoff's Natalie Harp attack proves that Dems can break through if they try.

— Steve M. (@stevemnomoremister.bsky.social) August 18, 2026 at 6:32 AM

But a couple of things concern me.

First, Ossoff isn't just gossiping -- he's stirring some gossip into a critique of Trump's mismanagement of ... well, everything he's in charge of. Ossoff is talking about sailors who aren't getting the resources they need in a war that every informed person knew should never be started. He's talking about Trump's fixation on monuments and interior decoration (Maggie Haberman has said, "If you looked at a chart of his mindshare ... 70 percent of it would be on his renovations") and the president's professed uninterest in Americans' real problems. He's talking about Trump's corruption and gullibility, as embodied in his acceptance of a plane from Qatar that lacks proper security. And he's talking about Trump's preference for surrounding himself with flatterers, which is where Natalie Harp comes in.

But this risks being reduced to smutty gossip about the possibility that there's something sexual going on between Harp and Trump. Don't get me wrong: that's good. To normal people (by which I mean non-Republicans), this looks like an amour fou, a doddering old man feeling besotted with a young, overly worshipful admirer, whether or not they're actually doing the deed. ("You are all that matters to me," Harp has written to Trump, according to Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their book Regime Change. We're also told that Trump has said, "All of you will go off and make money. She'll never leave me.")

I hope Ossoff's attack on Trump's failure to act like even a minimally competent president sticks, not just the gossip. I hope America is coming for the gossip and staying for the argument that Trump is extraordinarily bad at his job and isn't even trying to do it right. I'll take the sexual ridicule, but I want more.

I also don't want this moment to be exclusively about Ossoff -- his skills, his looks (Ossoff features prominently in an Axios story headlined "Democrats Enter Their Thirst Trap Era"), his potential 2028 presidential camapign. We already have Politico quoting an unnamed Democratic strategist who says that Ossoff looks like presidential timber, but if he's perceived as presidential timber, he might lose his Senate race.

“The moment the national political organization gets a whiff that Jon Ossoff is thinking about running for president is the moment that [the] Senate campaign falls from under him,” said a longtime Democratic strategist.

However: “That doesn’t take away from the fact that ... national leaders, national supporters are paying close attention to a guy who should be ahead by, you know, by one point at the most in a state like Georgia.”

This appears under the headline "Ossoff Just Went Viral Again. That Was Probably the Point: Behind the Viral Moments Is a Candidate Who Is Closely Involved with All Aspects of His Reelection Campaign." NEWSFLASH! Jon Ossoff carefully reads and edits his speeches before delivering them! Must credit Politico!

What we need now is for every Democrat to attack Trump and the Republican Party with the fierceness and wit of Jon Ossoff, or as much of it as they can muster. Ossoff is over the target, but he needs backup. Don't strand him out there.