Ever-present White House aide Natalie Harp was spotted in the Oval Office on Friday, looking on—and smiling furiously—as President Donald Trump took reporters’ questions.
Harp, 34, stood by one of the room’s couches as the 80-year-old president she fawns over spewed wild takes: that he knows Venezuela well because of the country’s representatives at the Miss Universe Pageant, which he once owned, “always did very well;” that Israel would no longer exist if he hadn’t been elected; and that “maybe” LeBron James “is a racist.”
A brief video taken by New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh shows Harp, a former One America News Network anchor, standing by, grinning.
Some online commentators proceeded to mock Harp’s expression by comparing her to actress Caitlin Stasey from the 2022 horror movie Smile. Others likened her to The Omen’s Katherine Thorn.
Harp has been referred to as Trump’s “human printer,” since she is known to follow him around with a printer to show him positive stories and social media posts. Trump has also called upon her to make internet searches—sometimes to try to refute information Cabinet members have told him. Occasionally, she reportedly weighs in with suggestions for the president’s Truth Social posts.
Harp’s fondness for Trump has reportedly led her to leave him gushing, personal letters.
“You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one, New York Times White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote in Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, was caught off-guard by Harp’s devotion. “Where am I?” she asked herself, according to Haberman and Swan.
Harp reportedly even took up residence in a Trump golf club women’s locker room to stay close to him during the summer of 2023.
Harp’s connection with the president is “very unhealthy,” her estranged brother, Preston, has said.
“She’s just like his fan club,” he told the Daily Mail.
Harp told the Daily Beast that he and his sister were taught about “American exceptionalism” by their homeschooling parents, and that’s what led her to her current occupation.
“She thinks that the whitewashing of history is actually a ‘correction,’ like Trump,” he said. “My sister and I were raised to believe in U.S. exceptionalism from childhood through high school, and that is exactly what Trump embodies.”
For his part, Trump has said that Harp loves him as much as Melania and his children, according to Swan and Haberman.
He once told his staffers that while they would all go off and make money, Harp “will never leave me.”
