When Sen. Elizabeth Warren first heard that Donald Trump was refusing to sign a landmark housing-affordability bill that she had stewarded through the Senate — with virtually universal bipartisan support — she thought it was a “joke.”
Last Wednesday, inside the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, a carpeted red stage with a small writing desk had already been arranged for the planned signing ceremony. To its left, a podium affixed with the presidential seal and 11 artfully draped flags framed the scene. But roughly two hours before the bill was set to become law, Trump pulled the rug out from not only Democrats, but also his own party, canceling the ceremony and signaling that he would not sign the ROAD to Housing Act until Congress passed his pet voter-suppression law, the “SAVE America” Act.
Almost a week later, he hasn’t budged.
“Big deal. It’s a yawn,” Trump told reporters on Monday of the legislation that seeks to remove barriers to the construction of affordable housing and ban private equity from buying up residential homes. “It hasn’t been sent to me yet. It’s coming, I understand, and then I’ll make the determination.… I think it’s so unimportant compared to the SAVE America Act.
“It is very bipartisan, that means the Democrats like it,” he added of the housing bill.
And so did Republicans. The bill passed through both chambers with a veto-proof majority, and would have been a much needed, marketable win for members of the GOP amid a string of national- and foreign-policy blunders by the president.
“I’ve spent 18 months, one Republican at a time, building a bipartisan enthusiastic majority for this bill,” Warren, the primary Democratic sponsor of the legislation, tells Rolling Stone. “It’s hard, but it’s possible, with one gigantic exception: when Donald Trump comes in and tells the Republicans to do something else.”
If you poll Americans on which issues are most important to them as voters, the perpetually increasing cost of living and housing will inevitably be at or near the top of the list. There’s a national housing shortage, the median age for a first-time home buyer has shot up to 40, and more Americans than ever are paying rent to corporate landlords.
“Everyone gets up Wednesday morning, the Republicans are tweeting about what a great bill it is,” Warren says. “They set up the stage, they have flags up. Mike Johnson is there, ready to go, and with less than two hours to the signing ceremony, Donald Trump decides he’s not going to sign it,” Warren recalled of the day. I thought “it was an Andy Borowitz ‘Donald Trump cannot take yes for an answer’ kind of thing, because I could not imagine that he wouldn’t jump out in front and take credit for this bill,”” she adds, referencing the New Yorker satirist.
She was incredulous not because the president had targeted her (she’s been pretty used to that for years now), but because she did not know “how Donald Trump could make it any clearer that he literally does not care about high costs or families.”
The president told reporters this week he wants to drive home prices up, not down, and in May asserted that he does not think about or consider how his Iran war-driven oil shock was affecting Americans’ finances — not even a “little bit.” Earlier this month, in response to recent economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump said, “I love the inflation.”
Warren recalled that early in Trump’s second term, she had personally spoken with the president about pursuing long-needed housing-affordability legislation, which had not had a major legislative package in decades. The bill had been crafted in conjunction with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the current chair of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
When he canceled the signing ceremony last week, Trump did not note Scott or the vast majority of the GOP who supported the bill. Instead, he laid responsibility for the legislation squarely at Warren’s feet. “The Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates, and even FISA, pales in comparison to passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post defending his decision. “Republicans will feel very stupid if they don’t do it first. I’ll be watching with tears in my eyes!!!”
Republicans themselves were furious at the interference, and the caucus lunch held later that afternoon descended into a screaming match between the president and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) over Iran, as tensions between the vulnerable Republican majority and the erratic president seemingly reached a boiling point.
“Anyone who bets on congressional Republicans caving in to Donald Trump usually collects money on that deal,” Warren says. “But the SAVE Act is so bad that even Republicans are staying away from it.… His popularity is in the dumpster, so his last chance to save himself is to cheat — and that’s basically what the SAVE Act is.”
The housing bill is still expected to become law — either via Trump begrudgingly signing it, or via the expiration of a 10-day legal countdown that would ratify the bill even without a presidential signature. At this point, it seems unlikely that the president would outright veto it out of spite. But his rejection of the ROAD to Housing Act has frightened off Republicans who would have otherwise touted the legislation to voters.
It’s disappointing, but Warren is already planning ahead for the next Congress. “This is a big bill, but the housing crisis is even bigger. Our job is to come back with a ROAD to Housing 2.0,” she says. “I’m already working on pulling together more ideas and encouraging other Democrats to come in with their proposals for what more we can do to reduce the cost of housing and get private equity out.”
It’s also just one piece of a larger affordability agenda. “Families are getting slammed by housing, but there’s so much more,” Warren adds. “We are working around the clock right now on a universal child-care bill that will be ready to go when Democrats have a majority. We are working on changes in healthcare coverage, so that everybody gets access.… Democrats have a big job to do to strengthen families and create more opportunities for working people.”
As for what the president is thinking, or what he might try next, Warren isn’t giving it too much of her time. “If you’re asking me to get into Donald Trump’s head to explain this,” she says through laughter, “that is a place I will not go. You can’t make me go there, it just doesn’t make any sense.”
Natalie Harp with Donald Trump on July 22, 2026.
Nothing About Trump and Natalie Harp Is Normal
In early 2024, while reporting a story on New York’s boisterous, controversial Young Republican Club, one of my sources told me they had a pretty direct line to Donald Trump himself.
At the time, Trump wasn’t president again — yet. But he was campaigning, and in order to get something in front of his eyes you had to first get the attention of someone else: his assistant and right-hand woman, Natalie Harp.
Harp, 35, is now at the center of a major media frenzy, as Democrats like Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff have seized upon her unusual relationship with her boss: part assistant, part hype-man, part gatekeeper. On Sunday night, Ossoff made a comment that many interpreted as an insinuation that Harp had a more personal relationship to the president.
“The president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks,” Ossoff said at a campaign event in Georgia. “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.”
Ossoff’s comments set off a firestorm both in Democratic circles and the GOP’s reactionary messaging apparatus.
“Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted on Monday morning. By Tuesday, the entire media ecosystem had weighed in — with some coming right out and saying what they thought Ossoff was implying in his joke, and detailing why it was out of bounds.
“Ossoff was clearly implying that Trump was having an affair with his staffer,” Megyn Kelly wrote on X. Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna called him a “sexist arrogant jerk.” Pundit Robby Starbuck wrote that “Ossoff is a vile coward for insinuating they’re having an affair.” The flood of backlash poured out of just about every conservative commentator you could think of.
The White House joined the fray after CNN posed a question about Harp to Trump, asking him to respond to Ossoff’s comments directly. “You mean Pee-Wee Herman?” Trump quipped in the moment, referring to Ossoff. His comms team went for a full broadside later online. “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” Trump’s rapid response account posted at CNN reporter Kristen Holmes. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”
Ossoff, meanwhile, tried to soften the blow of his joke, redirecting it — sort of — away from Harp herself to make it more of a comment on the president’s relationship to his staff in general. “I’ve heard this particular aide referred to as his security blanket,” he told Jen Psaki on MS NOW. “And I think we could say that about any number of the senior aides in the White House.”
But the damage was done, and it’s hard to believe Ossoff didn’t know exactly what he was doing. In recent years, some Democrats have occasionally flirted with the type of mud-slinging that Trump and his imitators became known for, but they’ve rarely landed a hit that provoked this much of a reaction.
“What a coward. Own your sexist joke, bro,” right-wing commentator Scott Jennings posted.
Harp’s history — and her relationship to the president — give some clues as to why the Republican beehive is so agitated.
Harp began her career in the public eye as an anchor for One America News, a right-wing propaganda outlet that was founded in 2013 and became something of a mouthpiece for the Trump administration and then the MAGA movement during the Biden administration. Democrats and liberal commentators have pointed out that Harp was often fawning over Trump during her segments.
While these clips have been used as more evidence that Trump and Harp have a strange dynamic, it’s hard to say that this kind of content is outside of the norm for OAN’s programming at the time. But that doesn’t mean Harp’s history with Trump isn’t strange — even by MAGA supplicant standards.
At the 2020 Republican National Convention, she said she was a bone cancer survivor and credited her survival to a “Right to Try” policy pushed by Trump in 2018 that allowed patients to use experimental drugs.
“When I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials,” Harp said at the RNC. “They didn’t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You did, and without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”
The Washington Post, however, notes that the drug Harp used was already approved by the FDA — which would have meant that the “Right to Try” law wouldn’t have applied.
Still, it’s clear that Harp feels a close personal connection to Trump. After her short stint at OAN, the Post cited her as a Trump employee as early as 2022. In 2024, The New York Times reported that Harp’s primary role on Trump’s staff was what other aides called “the human printer” — following Trump around with a battery powered printer so she could give him physical copies of social media posts, missives, text messages, and positive, often conspiratorial news stories. The Post story in 2022 also detailed her in this role, noting that other aides were “particularly distressed” by her access to and influence with the president.
“She is indicative of the people around him who just love him,” one anonymous adviser told the Post in 2022. “Love him too much.”
The Times’ reporting also noted that Harp’s esteem for Trump was particularly fervent, describing how she wrote him a series of what the newspaper called “devotional letters,” one of which said: “You are all that matters to me.” The Times described her running behind Trump’s golf cart, reading him social media posts and news articles. Following one of those instances, the Times reports that she wrote him another letter, apologizing for being “an embarrassment” while on the golf course in Scotland. “I want things to always be right between us,” she wrote. “I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).” Harp signed the letter, “With all my heart, Natalie.”
Harp’s family have acknowledged that her relationship to Trump is not that of a traditional staffer. In an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, Harp’s estranged brother Preston Harp said that “Since she was 16 she’s had an obsession with – she’s written letters to other presidents, let me put it that way,” Preston Harp said, mentioning “George Bush during the Iraq War” and that “her dream came true finally.”
These details are certainly odd, but so is basically everything about the particularities of Trump’s inner circle. Ossoff’s comment, however, likely came at least partially in response to another outlandish story that broke earlier this month.
On August 10, the Post reported that Trump had covertly switched planes during a trip to Turkey, hiding in an airline catering truck with a tiny group of aides in order to dodge a potential attack on Air Force One by Iranian proxies. The White House press corps and several key government figures — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio — stayed on board the “decoy plane.” Harp did not. She was reportedly in the food truck with Trump.
It’s impossible to know the exact nature of Harp’s relationship with Trump. Ossoff did not specifically mention an affair, though it’s hard to interpret his familiar comment as anything else — and the right-wing media is reacting to it as such, trying to take a moral high ground on behalf of a president who has, at least in civil court, been found liable for sexual abuse on at least one count, and routinely makes sexist comments toward female reporters and others.
Jesse Watters of Fox News was one of the only right-wing commentators to recognize the hypocrisy of bashing Ossoff’s comment while supporting Trump: “Am I fazed by this comment? No. Has Trump said so much worse, so much more sleazy things against other people? Yes. Have I defended those things? Absolutely. So, I’m not going to pretend to be all hot and bothered by it.”
Watters is an outlier, though. No matter what the charges, Trump will always have his protectors in the GOP, some more loyal than others. In recent years, Natalie Harp has been more loyal than anyone else.