Doting Trump aide is a gatekeeper with an open door to conspiracies
By: The Straits Times
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON - President-elect Donald Trump has always demanded loyalty from his aides, but few have answered the call quite like Ms Natalie Harp.
A 33-year-old former far-right cable host, Ms Harp is nearly always at Trump's side. She has written him a series of devotional letters, including one that said: "You are all that matters to me."
Once, when Trump was playing golf in Scotland, she ran behind his cart to keep him up to date with positive stories and social media posts.
Little known beyond Trump's immediate orbit, Ms Harp is now poised to play a potentially influential role in his White House, sitting right outside the Oval Office and acting as the conduit for a largely unsupervised flow of information to and from the president and helping him with his social media feed.
She has no official title, but during the campaign, colleagues referred to her as the "human printer" because she followed 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.
But Ms Harp also established herself at the center of a fast-moving carousel of text messages, articles and tidbits directed at 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 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.
In recent weeks, people with knowledge of her performance say, she has been more willing to operate within the transition team's chain of command.
Still, her role over most of the past three years speaks to Trump's desire to maintain open channels to a wide assortment of people and unvetted sources of information. And it underscores his tendency to surround himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear.
A top adviser to Trump used to say he would ask 49 people what they thought of something, stopping at 50 if the last person told him what he wanted to hear.
Ms Harp fits well inside those patterns, people who work with Trump have said. They have described her as a conduit, rather than a filter, and an instant enabler of his impulses. She types up his thoughts as he dictates them and she quickly dispatches them onto social media. She has sometimes arranged media interviews for him without the knowledge of Trump's press team.
The Trump transition team declined to make Harp available for an interview.
Ms Harp (centre) is omnipresent in images of Mr Donald Trump on the campaign trail and in the days since he won the election. PHOTO: NYTIMES
'Trusted and valued'
Trump has dismissed concerns about Ms Harp, whom he calls "sweetie" and treats like a daughter, according to people close to him. They say he appreciates Ms Harp in part because she was among the few aides working for him when he was still something of a political outcast, after he was voted out of office and after the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Mr Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesperson, said Ms Harp was "trusted and valued" and credited her "work ethic and dedication" for helping Trump win the election.
In response to a request for comment for this article, the Trump campaign also asked several allies to provide character references. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina described Harp as professional and dedicated. Republican Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas said she had a "bubbly, outgoing attitude" that helped keep Trump in high spirits.
But her direct relationship with Trump means that she has often operated largely outside the supervision of more senior aides, a situation that has at times raised alarm among some members of his inner circle who would like to see tighter control of what information he is receiving.
When people seeking influence with Trump want to turn him against their rivals, they send damaging clips to Ms Harp, knowing she will pass them along, unvetted.
She is omnipresent in images of Trump on the campaign trail and in the days since he won the election. A Trump campaign documentary produced by talk show host Tucker Carlson showed Ms Harp stationed next to Trump, taking dictation for Truth Social posts.
When Trump sent angry text messages to billionaire donor Miriam Adelson over the summer, it was Ms Harp who pressed send, according to two people with knowledge of the incident. The texts almost cost Trump the support of one of his party's biggest donors, before intermediaries worked to repair the relationship.
Ms Harp provided Trump an article that had an illustration of him wielding a baseball bat next to the head of Manhattan's district attorney Alvin Bragg, who was on the verge of indicting him. Trump quickly posted it to social media but deleted it after his lawyers pleaded with him to do so.
She was by Trump's side at Mar-a-Lago, taking dictation for his social media diatribe of more than 40 posts against writer E. Jean Carroll, whom he had been found liable for sexually abusing. Other Trump aides who were not at the Palm Beach, Florida, club at the time were helpless to stop him.
The most recent incident was a sign of the higher stakes as Trump returns to the White House. Ms Harp posted what was supposed to be a private message to Trump from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for all to see, shortly before the two leaders met in person for the first time in five years.
'I want to bring you joy'
Ms Harp, a devout Christian who grew up in California, first caught the attention of Trump in 2019 when she appeared on Fox News and credited him with saving her life.
She had bone cancer, she said, and legislation that Trump signed in 2018, the Right to Try law, saved her by giving her access to experimental treatments. It is unclear what drugs she was referring to.
Trump loved the story and invited her to speak on his behalf at the 2020 Republican National Convention. She joined his staff in 2022, after leaving her job as an anchor at the far-right One America News Network, where she further endeared herself to Trump by endorsing his baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen.
Trump once remarked, while angry after his arraignment in Fulton County, Georgia, in 2023, that Ms Harp was the only member of his staff who cared about him, according to two people familiar with the comment.
In 2023, Ms Harp sent a series of letters to Trump that unnerved people around him, according to a half-dozen people with knowledge of them.
"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 Trump for being her "guardian and protector in this life."
In another letter, she told 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.'"
At the White House, Ms Harp is likely to serve a role unlike any presidential adviser in modern history.
While the incoming staff secretary, Mr Will Scharf, will be tasked with managing the paper flow in and out of the president's office, those who have worked closely with Trump know that as long as Ms Harp is around there will inevitably be an entirely separate stream of information to his desk.
That is a change from Trump's first four years in office, when staff members who controlled his social media feed usually alerted higher-ups of potentially problematic posts, like dismissals of significant advisers.
Ms Harp, by contrast, has mostly run her own program.
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She's a cutie. Now that Ivanka is reaching middle age he needs a new daughter to fantasize about.
Again you are conflating 2 things, Ivanka isn't Ashley. that's right, Joe didn't just fantasize about his daughter.
Was there a question? no there was wasn't, so deflection fail,
Correct. Your deflection to Biden has failed.
A deflection, deflection. Outstanding prose, absolutely outstanding.
The ring master needs a pet monkey to keep him smiling. Another pathetic Christian baglicker.
This woman never grew up. She needs a mental health evaluation. Sounds like she's obsessed with trmp
Isnt that Melania's role ?
Rumor has it she's got her own thing on the side.
Wouldn't you let someone else take the small caliber bullet for you if you could?
I think Melania checked out
AA or AAA batteries?
Totally disqualifies her to be a reasonable addition to any White House staff. One of the biggest problems in America today is the prevalence of right wing conspiracy theories. Gateway Pundit was and is almost as bad as Infowars.
Her talents are wasted in the position Trump wants to give her.
She needs to be the new head of the Disinformation Governance Board.
Democrats/leftists seemed to think that was a wonderful idea when Joe tried it. Maybe Trump should adopt the same tactic.
BDS.
Oh, is BDS allowed?
Just checkin ……
Big Dick Syndrome? I guess i'll buy a Fiat 500 LOL
Yeah, that’s what you were going for. Better buy a Yugo