Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, where he officially accepted the vice presidential nomination in front of a raucous audience in Chicago’s United Center.
“It is the honor of my life to accept your nomination as vice president of the United States,” Walz declared to deafening cheers within the arena. Walz spoke in front of a sea of “Coach Walz” signs, and used several football metaphors throughout his speech, which came shortly after a member of the high school team he coached spoke at the convention, backed by several other players from the team.
As has become a common occurrence in Walz’s campaign speeches, he framed his address to the convention around the concept of neighborliness.
“Growing up in a small town like that, you learn how to take care of each other,” he said. “That family down the road, they may not think like you do, and they may not pray like you do. They may not love like you do. But they are your neighbors. And you look out for them. They look out for you.”
“Everybody belongs,’ Walz said. “Everybody has a responsibility to contribute.”
The speech was joyous, rousing, and emotional. Walz spoke about how it took him and his wife Gwen years to conceive. They were ultimately able to with the help of fertility treatments. “Hope, Gus, and Gwen: you are my entire world and I love you,” Walz said, fighting back tears and gesturing to his family in the audience, who were in tears themselves.
But while Walz brought emotion into the arena, he pulled no punches in discussing the 2024 Republican platform.
“Some folks just don’t understand what it takes to be a good neighbor,” Walz said. “Their Project 2025 will make things much much harder for people who are just trying to live their lives.”
“They spend a lot of time pretending they know nothing about this but I have taught high school football long enough to know — and trust me on this — that when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they are going to use it,” he added. “It is an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and most extreme amongst us. It is an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need, and is it weird? Absolutely. Absolutely. But it is also wrong and dangerous.”
Walz contrasted his criticism of Republicans with his and Harris’ vision for the nation. “If you are a middle-class family or a family trying to get into the middle class, Kamala Harris will cut your taxes,” he said. “If you are getting squeezed by prescription drug prices, Kamala Harris will take on big pharma. If you are hoping to buy a home, and she will help it to be more affordable. No matter who you are, Kamala Harris will stand up and fight for your freedom to live the life that you want to lead.”
Walz, just weeks ago a relatively unknown governor, has skyrocketed into the public consciousness as the dark horse contender to become Harris’ running mate. Walz — a former high school teacher and 24-year veteran of the National Guard — entered politics much later in life than your stand issue politico. His working-class credentials, down-to-earth attitude, and Midwestern dad charm made him a viral sensation among Democrats.
“You know, I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this one in my life,” Walz said on Wednesday. “But I’ve given a lot of pep talks. So let me finish with this: Team, it’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense. We’re driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team to win this. Kamala Harris is tough. She’s experienced. And she’s ready.”
Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” kicked in as soon as Walz finished speaking, after which he was greeted by his family onstage. CNN reported that Young personally gave the DNC permission to use the song. He has previously sued the Trump campaign for using it.
Walz is an inspirational force, but he’s also an incredibly effective and ruthless messenger against the GOP’s political agenda, and he knows how to communicate progressive policies to centrist voters. He first entered politics by defeating a six-temp Republican incumbent to nab a seat in the House of Representatives, and would hold that seat for six terms himself even as his district voted for Trump in the general election. Walz is credited with slapping the incredibly sticky label of “weird” on Trump, his running-mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and the GOP at large. The dig is driving conservatives up the wall.
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the Harris campaign plans to deploy Walz as a “sledgehammer against Vance and Trump” between now and election day.
“We are running against a weird dangerous agenda of taking away people’s rights, monitoring women’s pregnancies, and other insane hurtful bullshit like making Trump a dictator,” one source close to the campaign previously told Rolling Stone. “The antidote to that is a regular guy in Tim Walz — a veteran, football coach, friendly neighbor who helps fix your car, and a really successful governor.”
Apple Maps, August 30, 2026
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.