Natalie Harp – one of the oldest and most loyal aides of Trump, holding several important positions. Among other things, she is responsible for posting the president’s messages on the social network “Truth Social,” writes the British public broadcaster BBC website.
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This week she again came into the spotlight due to statements by Trump’s traditional opponent, Georgia state Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. The politician sharply criticized Trump again and mentioned Natalie Harp in his speech, which widely spread on social networks.
Criticizing the president, Ossoff stated: “He [Trump] does not want to do his job. He wants to build his dance hall and travel with Natalie in their, judging by everything, completely unprotected flying palace, which was gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
The senator was referring to the new presidential plane “Air Force One,” as well as journalists’ reports that Harp flew with Trump on a secret flight from Turkey after the NATO summit. Earlier, the US press reported that D. Trump, when leaving Ankara in early July, used a food supply van to discreetly transfer from “Plane No. 1” to “Plane No. 2.” According to the media, the secret flight was related to an alleged threat from Iran.
What is known about Trump’s aide, whom the media called the president’s “favorite toy”?
Oncological disease and an unusual path to the White House
Natalie Harp was born in California into a Christian family with conservative views. Her path to the White House can be called atypical.
She became known for attributing her life-saving to Trump.
During his first term, Trump achieved the passage of the Right to Try Act, which gave patients broader access to experimental treatments. Then Harp was able to use this opportunity and treat bone cancer with experimental methods, as traditional chemotherapy did not yield positive results in her case.
“When the chemotherapy that was available did not work, no one wanted to accept me into clinical trials […]. They did not give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You gave me this opportunity, and without you, I would have died waiting for their permission,” she said at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
After the event, D. Trump said that Natalie Harp “lit up the television screen like few others” he had seen.
Natalie Harp, who spoke a lot about her treatment experience and expressed gratitude to Trump, was quickly remembered in the Republican Party’s MAGA wing. Soon she was accepted into the advisory council of Trump’s 2020 campaign headquarters.
“The biggest Trump fan”
After Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections, Harp began working as a host on the right-wing conservative news cable channel “One America News Network” (OAN).
There she became known as a loyal defender of Donald Trump, who, among other things, claimed that he allegedly won the 2020 elections.
In 2022, she left the channel to join another Trump presidential campaign.
Most of the information about Trump’s attitude towards Harp comes from anonymous sources mentioned in books by journalists such as Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, or Michael Wolff. Almost nothing is known about Natalie Harp’s personal life.
Her brother Preston Harp explained in a CNN interview his sister’s unusual devotion to Trump by saying that the current president embodies everything their mother taught them.
She is beautiful, has a good character. She believes he saved her life, so a person who feels such gratitude probably feels very good.
“So I think that’s really where her fascination with Trump comes from,” said Preston Harp.
He added that Natalie was obsessed from a young age with the idea of working in the White House and wrote letters to previous presidents, including George W. Bush during the Iraq war.
In a CNN interview, Harp’s brother said that her “dream finally came true” when she got to the White House, and that his sister was “the biggest Trump fan, so probably he likes her too.”
“She is beautiful, has a good character. She believes he saved her life, so a person who feels such gratitude probably feels very good,” he said.
Harp’s official position in the White House is executive assistant to the president. This is not a very high-level position. It includes logistics, planning, and managing communication flows.
However, it seems Harp has given this role a new meaning, and her authority is significantly greater than her predecessors, such as Madeleine Westerhout, who worked in Trump’s first administration.
What influence does Natalie Harp have on Trump?
When CNN journalist Kristen Holmes asked Trump about Ossoff’s comments this week, the US president attacked her. “You are very disrespectful… ‘Fake news,’ you are fake news, you are a noisy and loud woman […] You are a fake journalist and spread fake news,” Trump responded to the journalist’s question.
Later, the White House posted a video on its official “X” account showing Trump’s conversation with the journalist and accused her of using “cheap” and rude methods in her work.
“Someday your children will learn about your nasty and inhumane question. They will be uncomfortable and ashamed to see how one of their parents behaves so heartlessly,” read another post dedicated to K. Holmes.
Trump’s aide Natalie Harp is almost always near President Donald Trump during his second term.
Journalists working in the White House often see her just a few steps away from Trump in the Oval Office or on the “Air Force One” plane during many of his domestic and foreign trips.
“She is always there. Always,” a source close to the White House told the BBC.
People close to the White House and media representatives often call her the “living printer,” as she is often seen with a laptop printer she needs to print articles and messages from social networks for Trump, as he prefers to read texts on paper.
This means that Harp likely has significant opportunities to control what information and messages Trump receives, notes another source familiar with White House operations.
Other anonymous sources described her to the US media as the president’s “favorite toy.”
Harp also plays a kind of Trump secretary role on social networks: she posts messages on his “Truth Social” account on his behalf.
In one of the videos, which widely spread on social networks after Ossoff’s comments, Harp is seen typing a social media post dictated to her by Trump while he was watching Kamala Harris’s speech in 2024.
Given the recent increased attention to Harp, the White House stated that she is a “reliable and valuable” team member, although Trump himself rarely spoke about her in front of television cameras.
Ossoff was one of many Trump critics who noted that Harp was reportedly on the same plane that the president used to leave Turkey after the US allegedly received information about a threat from Iran.
When journalist Maggie Haberman, who has written extensively and continues to write about Trump’s presidency, was asked in an interview on the “MS NOW” channel why Trump took Harp with him on the secret flight from Turkey to the “Second Plane,” she replied: “Because she is, if you can say so, like a pacifier to him, like a beloved warm blanket, a favorite toy – in short, something that creates a sense of comfort and calm.”
In 2024, Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote in a “New York Times” article that Harp allegedly wrote in a letter to Trump: “You are everything that matters to me.”
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