President Donald Trump has become increasingly dependent on his growing cadre of “weird work wives,” and a top political analyst revealed why during an interview with The Daily Beast.
The latest edition of The Daily Beast Podcast featured guest David Rothkopf, a veteran political analyst and columnist for the outlet, who dug into the ongoing scandal surrounding Trump’s close young aide, Natalie Harp. In recent weeks, Harp’s overt dedication to Trump, bordering on obsession to some, has caused widespread concern about their relationship, as well as the impact she is having on the tightly controlled information that the president is receiving.
Examining the situation, Rothkopf suggested that Trump’s well-documented and increasing “paranoia” means that he now only trusts a small handful of people, including the likes of Harp. He also connected this trend of “weird work wives” to Karoline Leavitt, who recently departed the position of White House Press Secretary, and the glaring recent absence of his actual wife, First Lady Melania Trump, and his family.
“Trump doesn’t have a wife around him,” Rothkopf said. “He doesn’t have kids around him. I don’t think he likes his kids — he certainly didn’t go to Don Jr.’s wedding. People beyond, like, one degree of separation can’t be trusted. He’s paranoid.”
Harp, Rothkopf suggested further, has become a particularly “egregious” example of this trend due to the degree to which she lavishes him with praise. Trump is reported to have told staffers that he believes Harp will be the only person to stay with him in the long-run, after all his other staffers move on to bigger jobs and bigger paychecks. The Daily Beast noted in its report on Rothkopf’s interview that the other women in Trump’s orbit, including communications aide Margo Martin and first-term aide Hope Hicks, have also been described as his “work wives.”
“So how does he create the idea that life is pleasant, that he’s a human being?” Rothkopf added. “He has these women that he has around him, particularly people like Natalie Harp, who’s a really egregious case, who are like, ‘You’re great boss. You’re a wonderful man. I love you. You fill my heart. Let’s pray.’”
Citing his own past experience in the administration of Bill Clinton, he added: “I worked in an administration, and you do get up at 5 in the morning, and you try to get to meetings early, and you do then work for 14 or 15 or 16 or 20 hours in the day. And throughout that whole period of time, when you exit the white House, you are subject to scrutiny, potential attacks, grueling schedules, media commentary, and so forth. So there is a kind of an impulse to create something that’s akin to a normal life in the White House, that you have relationships with normal people and so forth.”