President Donald Trump's command over the "fantasyland" that has sustained his administration showed a major sign of implosion this week, according to a new analysis from The i Paper, which argued that his power has "stalled" to a crippling degree.

In a newsletter published Saturday, author and guest writer Nick Bryant, a former BBC correspondent who spent years covering American politics, argued that the gradually deepening fiasco surrounding Trump's close personal aide, Natalie Harp — a former One America News presenter who has served Trump since his first term and became known for ferrying him printouts of flattering coverage — demonstrated that the president "has lost control of the plot lines" powering his presidency — a particularly damaging development for a politician whose well-documented obsession with television has shaped his desire to run the White House like a producer running a show.

"Trump, the executive producer of his own presidency, has lost control of the plot lines. This week that became glaringly obvious after the Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia, baited the President over his relationship with a 35-year-old White House aide, Natalie Harp," Bryant wrote.

"Trump 'wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar,' quipped Ossoff during a campaign speech, a line which inevitably went viral and gave venerable news organisations, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, an excuse to run profiles of the blonde staffer. This brought a furious response from the White House. 'Jon Jackoff,' fumed Trump's director of communications Steven Cheung on X, 'has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics.'"

Ossoff, who won his seat in a January 2021 runoff that helped deliver Democrats the Senate majority, is seeking a second term in a battleground state Trump carried in 2024 — making the exchange an early flashpoint in one of next year's most closely watched Senate races. The "flying palace" Ossoff mocked is a Boeing 747-8 that Qatar's royal family offered as a gift in May, a plan the administration said would see the jet serve as Air Force One and one that drew ethics scrutiny from congressional Democrats.

Bryant continued: "Trump 2.0 has stalled. There is no coherent strategy to reboot this presidency, either from Trump or from senior West Wing aides. Engrossed by the here and now, he rarely seems to think beyond the latest news cycle."

Signs "abound" elsewhere that the presidency, once seemingly unstoppable, has ground to a near halt, Bryant noted. The legislative agenda is all but completely non-existent, executive orders have slowed to "a trickle," and the president "has been reduced to showing off his latest home improvements" — touting his new White House helipad and ballroom construction projects. That slowed tempo is unfolding even though Trump's Republican Party narrowly controls both chambers of Congress.

"That messy construction site at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, which is not yet problem-free after its new paint job flaked off and algae bloomed," Bryant continued. "The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, whose beleaguered sailors have been on a nearly nine-month deployment because of the Iran war. Now, finally, after a voyage likened to the travails of Odysseus and reports of rations and morale running low, the aircraft carrier is heading home. Small wonder Trump's approval rating this week sunk to a new low of just 33 per cent, according to Reuters/Ipsos."

The Abraham Lincoln had been kept at sea through repeated extensions as Middle East escalation — including June's US strikes on Iran's nuclear programme — led the Navy to hold carriers in the region far longer than planned, straining crews and their families.

He concluded: "This week saw yet another illustration of the fantasyland he seems to occupy when he boasted about making the Strait of Hormuz a US territory. But voters are tiring of his fictions. This shrinking President can no longer bend reality to his will."

The strait, the narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passes, remains international waters.