“Boy, that escalated quickly,” Ron Burgundy marveled in the 2004 comedy movie “Anchorman.” Such was the case when Georgia Democrat Senator Jon Ossoff attacked Donald Trump and his faithful aide, Natalie Harp, over the weekend.

The president “doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said of Trump at a Sunday campaign rally in Georgia. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

The “flying palace” was a reference to the recent kerfuffle over Air Force One — the president switching planes and all that. It’s absolutely within bounds to criticize the American president for accepting the Qatari plane as a gift only to find out that it lacks the defensive capabilities of the older model.

Trump himself is fair game, too, especially given his history of infidelity, surrounding himself with beautiful women, and the last decade of #MeToo accusations. That’s to say nothing of his schtick of being the nation’s sophomoric insult comic.

But maybe lay off Natalie Harp.

“I had cancer, and he saved my life, signed that bill, and ever since he found out, he stayed in touch with me. Made sure I was OK,” she said years ago, referencing the 2019 Right to Try Act.

“Natalie Harp is a bone cancer survivor who only lived because Trump greenlit the right to try an experimental treatment when you were terminal,” noted Robby Starbuck. “I met her back then. She went to work for him after recovery. [Ossoff] is a vile coward for insinuating they’re having an affair. He should apologize to Natalie for doing this. I don’t think any of us would want our daughters talked about like this.”

Departing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted, “Natalie Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump’s team.”

Trump never lets an insult slide, so he fired back, calling Ossoff “Pee-wee Herman,” the goofball character played by the late Paul Reubens. Various White House officials offered their own assessments, some of which are too crude to reprint.

Media outlets love a good controversy, so they pounced. Jen Psaki, Joe Biden’s former press secretary, pontificates for MS Now, and she gleefully gave Ossoff a chance to share his remarks with the dozens of people who watch her show. “I’ve heard this particular aide referred to as his security blanket,” Ossoff explained in more muted tones. He claimed, “The West Wing is full of sycophants who tell [Trump] what he wants to hear and enable him.”

That wasn’t nearly salacious enough. Numerous media outlets soon issued story after story after story exploring everything they could even remotely insinuate about 35-year-old Natalie Harp, including calling on the “experts” to debunk the notion that her survival had anything to do with Trump or his law.

Did you know that she “encouraged the president to tear down the East Wing of the White House”? Well, now you do, thanks to the Daily Beast for that utterly critical bit of information.

It’s not that the public shouldn’t know who is advising the president; it’s that the Leftmedia doesn’t show this level of curiosity in all directions. When Joe Biden was cognitively impaired, the Leftmedia hardly bothered asking who was actually running things.

As for Ossoff, he clearly is trying to elevate his profile during a tight race to retain his seat against a challenge from Representative Mike Collins. In a twisted way, the Georgia Democrat can thank Donald Trump and his 2020 election shenanigans for his victory in a special election on January 5, 2021. Trump lost Georgia in 2020. Put whatever asterisk you want there, but my personal opinion is that you can’t invite Hollywood to take over a state like Georgia and then wonder why it turns blue. Trump divided Republicans after that election, especially in the Peach State, and it cost the GOP two Senate seats.

Ossoff may also have ambitions beyond the Senate.

“Ossoff has essentially moved beyond his race already,” one Republican strategist said. “This was a move that was clearly, wholly intended to put him on the national platform in a fight with the president, which isn’t something you do in a Senate race. It’s something you’re doing because you have larger, national ambitions.”

Then again, Ossoff is a 39-year-old inheritance-welfare recipient and Jewish white guy from Atlanta. Neither of those things is likely to excite the antisemitic, class-warring Democratic Socialists of America currently commandeering the bad ship Democrat.

So maybe it was just an ill-considered laugh line at a rally. Either way, the whole media industrial complex is harping on it.

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