She’s Donald Trump’s closest aide, a constant presence in the Oval Office or on the president’s regular weekend golf trips.
But even though Trump clearly relishes her company, Natalie Harp’s colleagues are not so keen, according to a New York Times reporter who says Harp is “not beloved” in the White House.
Harp, 35, is known in the West Wing as Trump’s “human printer.” She prints out news stories, social media posts and messages she thinks he’d like to see, as well as helping him craft his late-night tirades on Truth Social.
Her total devotion to the 80-year-old president was documented in a Times report this week citing a letter from her to the president after she thought she might have offended him on an overseas trip. “I want things to always be right between us,” she wrote. It was signed, “With all my heart, Natalie.”
Maggie Haberman, the Times White House correspondent whose book Regime Change helped to shine attention on Harp, told CNN’s OutFront that Trump’s young aide works seven days a week.
In her book, co-authored with Jonathan Swan, Haberman described Trump talking to aides about Harp, telling them, “Everyone else will go off and make money, she’ll never leave,” and noted that she is the person “who loves him as much as his wife and children.”
The reporter also told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Harp serves a “specific purpose” as a gatekeeper for Trump, which includes being a conduit for foreign leaders to contact the president if they can’t access him “some other way.”
“She is with him so much of the day during those meetings, and she is talking to him throughout the evening about social media posts,” Haberman said, noting Trump considers her “very important,” as do others outside the White House.
Haberman said people in Trump’s orbit compare Harp to “very, very, very serious gatekeepers” in his past who would previously sit outside his office in Trump Tower, whom he would refer to as “the girls.”
They include his chief assistant of 26 years, Norma Foerderer, and his executive assistant of 34 years, Rhona Graff.
Haberman noted that some people close to Trump said Harp has taken over a similar role, sitting off to the side in the Oval Office, ready for when he wants her to “go fetch papers.”
Haberman also pointed out Harp operates outside the chain of command, and that her power over Trump has rubbed some White House staff the wrong way.
“She is not beloved by a lot of her colleagues,” Haberman said, 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.”
Harp’s relationship with the president has come under the spotlight after Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff namechecked her at an election rally in Georgia as he attacked Trump, triggering MAGA outrage.
“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do his job,” the 39-year-old senator told the crowd, before invoking Trump’s peculiar relationship with his executive assistant.
“He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Haberman told CNN that Harp is “somebody who has a huge level of access to the president. He obviously wants her there.”
She added, “But this is the White House. This is not a campaign. And so this is going to raise different questions about who is around the president, who was working on the taxpayer salary.”
Harp earns $150,000 a year in her role working for the Trump administration.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
