Who Is Natalie Harp? Trump’s Most Ardent Aide, Explained
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/who-is-natalie-harp-trump-aide-explained.html
Absolute loyalty to Donald Trump is a job requirement for everyone he employs. So how far do you have to go to scare other people on Team Trump with your devotion to the president? Well, just look at Natalie Harp.
Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant has reportedly unnerved her colleagues by leaving out letters for her boss that say things like, “You are all that matters to me.” They’ve raised alarms (via anonymous media leaks, if not to Trump himself) about her feeding the president unhinged online content and being the driving force behind his bizarre Truth Social posts.
Opponents of the president have taken note of his close relationship with Harp, too. Senator Jon Ossoff accused Trump of not actually wanting to do his job, saying he just “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
Here’s a guide, which we’ll keep updated, to everything we know about the “human printer” and most ardent Trump aide.
How did Natalie Harp get involved in politics?
Harp grew up in California, graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University in 2012, and earned an MBA from Liberty University in 2015.
On June 12, 2019, she published a Linkedin post titled “I’m Living Proof — the Party of Healthcare is Trump’s.” Harp, who described herself as “a Millennial woman fighting cancer,” criticized then-candidate Joe Biden’s promise to cure cancer if elected president. She said she was the victim of medical error in 2015, and Democratic policies discouraged her from fighting to recover:
On November 9, 2015 — a year to the day Donald Trump would win the presidency — a nurse mixed up my IV with the deadly substance of sterile water leaving me housebound and searching for care. Instead of studying my symptoms to diagnose my condition, my Democrat-controlled state and country offered me opioids, barbiturates, medical marijuana, disability, Do-Not-Resuscitate orders, and yes, Death With Dignity. Before one appointment, I was even instructed in the voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED).
According to the Democrats, healthcare is a right. But a right to what — all of the above? No, thank you.
Harp credited “Right to Try” legislation passed during Trump’s first term with saving her life after she “failed the two available chemotherapies for my rare disease and was denied from clinical trials”:
My oncologist didn’t tell me I had other options. Donald Trump did. So I found another oncologist who was willing to try a different approach—an FDA-approved immunotherapy drug for an unapproved use. Now my numbers are stabilizing and so is my pain.
Two days later (coincidentally, on Trump’s birthday) Harp appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss her post.
When did Trump hire Harp?
Trump, who had a phone interview on the same episode of Fox & Friends, praised Harp on Twitter after the show:
A year later, Trump invited Harp to speak at the 2020 Republican National Convention. She delivered an It’s a Wonderful Life-themed speech, in which she memorably claimed that without Trump, “we’d all be living in Pottersville, sold out to a crooked Mr. — or I should say a crooked Mrs. Potter — with no hope of escape except death itself”:
Harp’s estranged brother, Preston Harp, told the Daily Mail in June 2026 that a month before the RNC appearance their father died by suicide. They have not spoken since. Preston — described by the Mail as a “long-haired hippie” who now works in Nicaragua with peace activist S. Brian Willson — said later that summer his sister and mother moved to an apartment near Mar-a-Lago:
She and her mother left California weeks later and moved together into an 18th floor apartment in West Palm Beach, Florida, just three miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private members club, where they built inroads with the President at the center of the MAGA universe.
From 2020 to 2022, Harp worked was an anchor at the far-right One America News Network, where she “further endeared herself” to Trump by endorsing his bogus election fraud claims, per the New York Times. She left the network in March 2022 to work for Trump.
Did Trump really save her life?
That seems doubtful. Harp has repeatedly said that the “Right to Try” law gave her access to life-saving experimental drugs. It’s unclear what specific drugs she was referring to, but her own description suggests the new law had nothing to do with it, as the Washington Post reported in 2020:
Harp has repeatedly credited a “Right to Try” law, pushed by the president and signed into law in May 2018 for saving her life. But the treatment she said she has received — “an FDA-approved immunotherapy drug for an unapproved use” in her own words — would not have been covered under Right to Try because the drug had already been approved.
… Medical experts say such applications — called “off-label use” — are common in cancer treatment and long predated the law. Right To Try, on the other hand, was supposed to help patients gain access to drugs that have not been “approved or licensed by the FDA for any use.”
What is Natalie Harp’s job, exactly?
During the 2024 campaign she had no official title, according to the Times, but “colleagues referred to her as the ‘human printer’ because she followed Mr. Trump around with a portable printer and a battery pack to charge it, so she could hand him information in hard copy, as he prefers.”
Much of this was content from conspiratorial far-right sources, according to the Times:
But Ms. Harp also established herself at the center of a fast-moving carousel of text messages, articles and tidbits directed at Mr. Trump. This has generated concern among other aides who feel she has been far too willing to serve as a funnel for conspiratorial information at a moment when Mr. Trump appears more contemptuous than ever of attempts to manage or control him. One of her go-to news sources, people who have observed her say, is the website Gateway Pundit, which frequently disseminates conspiracy theories embraced by the far right.
Now Harp is Trump’s executive assistant. The White House’s annual personnel report to Congress says her formal title is “special assistant to the president and executive assistant to the president,” and she makes $150,000 per year. Harp is an “ever-present” figure in the Oval Office, according to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a new book from Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. She reportedly never takes days off, not even Sundays.
“Harp was generally on a chair off to the side, her laptop open, head cocked, listening but never contributing unless ordered to by Trump,” Haberman and Swan wrote, per People. “She fulfilled, in a flash, any request, whether a ‘Trump 2028’ that needed to be fetched from the merchandise room, a quick Google search, or producing the latest story from right-wing websites like Breitbart or Gateway Pundit.”
Haberman and Swan reported that Harp “would gush with delight” as Trump added more and more gold to the Oval Office, while the response from other aides eventually became “muted.”
Harp’s social media duties have expanded to include suggesting Truth Social content and posting messages on the president’s behalf. The Wall Street Journal described her role in crafting Trump’s online messages in May 2026:
She brings the president stacks of printed-out draft social-media posts for his approval. The proposed posts often recycle content from other accounts that Harp or advisers think would appeal to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
Harp then logs onto the president’s account—at times outside of normal work hours—and posts batches of Trump-approved messages, the people said. Trump personally signs off on all of the content posted to his account. While Harp often posts content on Trump’s behalf, the president posts some messages himself, White House officials said.
So she’s writing Trump’s Truth posts?
It seems it’s more of a collaboration between Harp and Trump. A Fox News documentary series on the 2024 campaign captured a bit of their process:
When you see a Trump Truth Social post there’s a good chance that it was typed, posted, and maybe even drafted by Harp. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Harp was behind two Trump Truth Social posts that were deleted afare public blowback, a racist Obamas meme and an AI-generated picture depicting Trump as Jesus:
Earlier this year, at Trump’s direction, Harp posted a video that included racist imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, and an AI-generated image of Trump as a Christ-like figure, people familiar with the matter said.
Harp may be feeding Trump nutty content, but no one has accused her of posting anything to his feed without his approval.
What’s up with these letters to President Trump?
Two years ago, Haberman and Swan reported in the Times that Harp sent Trump a series of “devotional letters” in 2023:
“You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one of the letters, which were seen by The New York Times. The letters’ authenticity was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them.
“I don’t ever want to let you down,” Ms. Harp wrote, thanking Mr. Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.”
In another letter, she told Mr. Trump that she wanted to get back to “that synergy” she used to have with him, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.”
“I want to bring you joy,” she wrote, “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”
In August 2026, the Times reported that in another letter Harp apologized to Trump for being caught sprinting after his golf cart:
Several videos shared with The Times show Ms. Harp sprinting across great distances to keep up with Mr. Trump’s golf cart as it putters across his course in Scotland. “I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland,” she wrote in a letter to the president that was viewed by The Times.
The letter goes on to say: “I want things to always be right between us. 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).”
The letter concludes: “With all my heart, Natalie.”
Has Harp written weird letters to any other presidents?
Incredibly, yes. In an August 18, 2026 interview with CNN, Preston Harp revealed that his sister also sent letters to George W. Bush (who never responded):
How do Harp’s colleagues feel about her devotion to Trump?
They don’t love it! The Daily Beast noted that there have been several reports that other White House staffers were troubled by Harp’s relationship with Trump:
The [letter] situation was so bizarre that Trump’s future chief of staff Susie Wiles asked herself, “Where am I?” according to Haberman and Swan.
The adoring letters unnerved people in Trump’s orbit to the point that the Secret Service considered Harp a “potential danger to herself as well as the president,” Michael Wolff reported in his 2025 book All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America.
Some are also concerned about her unfettered access to Trump’s social media accounts, according to the Journal:
Harp has frustrated some White House officials because she typically doesn’t share draft posts with the chief of staff’s office, communications aides or national-security officials. Harp has told others she works for Trump and only listens to him.
Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN, “She is not beloved by a lot of her colleagues,” adding, “There has been a lot of controversy around Harp’s role for a while, and what it ends up being reduced to in the descriptions of some people is essentially a food fight.”
However, officially, Harp’s colleagues adore her and think her close relationship with the president is enviable. After the publication of Regime Change, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told People, “No president has cultivated as much loyalty among their staffers and administration officials as President Trump; this is a testament to his commitment to our country and its people.”
He added, “Natalie Harp is a beloved White House Official, and the Fake News Media will never understand what it’s like to be as trusted and admired as her.”
How does Trump feel about Natalie?
About the blonde, 34-year-old aide who caters to his whims and appears to be hopelessly devoted to him? Pretty good.
Trump is clearly very fond of Harp. According to Regime Change, he’s taken to calling her “Nathalie,” using the French pronunciation of her name. And when Trump snuck off Air Force One in a catering truck on July 8, 2026, Harp went with him, while Marco Rubio and many other more senior White House officials were left on a jet potentially being targeted by Iran.
Trump told his team early in his second term that Harp is the “only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids.”
“All of you will go off and make money,” Trump reportedly told staffers. “She’ll never leave me.”
This piece has been updated.
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