Why we should care about what’s happening with Donald and Natalie

OK, let’s all take a deep breath and ask why we should care so much about the media melodrama swirling around President Donald Trump and one of his closest aides.

I mean, it’s shocking how much attention has been devoted to the entirely normal professional relationship between President Trump and his special assistant for obsessive flattery and late-night truth rants, Natalie Harp. Fortunately, noted feminists like Newt Gingrich have stepped up to defend the honor of “working professional women” everywhere from people who use “misogynistic language” to diminish and smear women who are “simply doing their job.”

Not that President Trump would ever use misogynistic language to smear, say, a journalist who is simply doing her job. Or a member of Congress. Or a Supreme Court justice.

You know, I don’t seem to remember many Republicans rallying to defend the working professional women, many of them women of color, who made up the majority of people purged in the mass firings of federal workers called for by Project 2025 and carried out by Elon Musk and Russell Vought. I don’t think the attitude expressed then was concern, as much as it was gloating.

We’re about to experience a similar disconnect between Republican posturing and Republican policies as Labor Day approaches.

While Trump campaigned as a champion of the “ forgotten men and women ,” he promptly forgot about them once he took power. While his henchmen ravaged worker protections , Trump focused on his real priorities: enriching himself and his family through brazen corruption .

In his first year since returning to power — even before his reckless decision to go to war against Iran had hiked gas prices and economic uncertainty —Trump had “actively made life less affordable for working people,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The biggest harm, the institute noted, was weakening workers’ bargaining power. “His policies have systematically stripped workers of leverage in the labor market, driving down pay and making it harder for working families to afford the basics,” it wrote. He’s the biggest union buster in American history.

In addition, the massive push for deregulation has made workers less safe and work riskier by robbing them of “of dozens upon dozens of rules that protect them from being forced to risk illness and injury on the job and ensure that they are paid for their labor.”

In June, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a report titled, “ 10 Ways President Trump Has Hurt American Workers .”

“Donald Trump promised American workers he’d have their backs, then turned on them once he took office,” said Sen. Warren. “He’s made it harder for workers to get a job and join a union, and easier for giant corporations to deny benefits and endanger workers.

In addition to rolling back health and safety regulations and undermining the National Labor Relations Board, Trump has harmed Americans by starting nonsensical trade wars with our closest allies and creating uncertainty with his erratic tariff policies.

The economic chaos and cultural fallout are hurting American workers and companies that make everything from bourbon to cars — and hurting communities and small businesses that rely on trade and tourism.

Meanwhile, Trump and his family have raked in billions of dollars . But it’s never enough. The new schemes keep coming . The latest is designed to make money for Trump and for Wall Street insiders who will pay big money for an early look at Trump social media posts designed to manipulate the stock market. One more way to rig the system against everyday people.

It’s clear that Trump doesn’t care about the people he’s hurting.

He doesn’t care about the soldiers and sailors who are bearing the brunt of the war he started without a plan to finish it. He’s told us he doesn’t worry about the war’s impact on workers and families who are struggling with the high cost of gas and the way that makes almost everything less affordable.

He doesn’t care about the immigrants and communities being terrorized by his mass deportation schemes. He doesn’t care about the kids and families being hurt by his administration’s undermining of public health measures like vaccines.

Trump’s obvious lack of concern for the well-being of most Americans helps explain why there’s such a fascination with the special treatment he affords Harp in return for her unsettling level of devotion. Even Cabinet members who regularly debase themselves to curry his favor were left on the plane that was deemed a security threat when Harp joined Trump in the infamous catering cart escape.

We know there are more important things happening in the world and our own lives. But we can’t help caring about this story, because it reveals so much about what Trump cares about. It isn’t us.

Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way .