Donald Trump’s ever-present and “infatuated” blonde aide sent another eyebrow-raising letter to the president, the New York Times has revealed.
The publication reported after Trump’s re-election in 2024 that Natalie Harp was primed to be an important conduit in his new administration. It also exposed fawning letters the young aide sent to her boss, including one that said, “You are all that matters to me.”
Now, with renewed focus on the relationship between Harp, 35, and Trump, 80, after a public gibe from Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, the paper has spilled on another message the former cable news host sent her boss.
In it, Harp, officially executive assistant to the president, apologized to him for running behind his cart as he played golf in Scotland.
The Times reported that its journalists had seen videos, and that Harp was “sprinting great distances” in a bid to fulfill her main duty of keeping him abreast of positive news stories about him. “I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland,” she wrote. “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).”
It concludes: “With all my heart, Natalie.”
Trump’s MAGAworld supporters insist that it is not unusual for a senior aide to be with the president, even at weekends. But that response lands awkwardly when the nuances are explored.
Firstly, Trump brought Harp with him during his bizarre Air Force One escape gambit in Turkey earlier this summer, leaving behind senior Cabinet officials and journalists as he retreated in a catering truck amid an apparent threat from Iran. Then there are the letters and comments from her estranged brother, Preston.
In June, in an interview with The Daily Mail, he said his sister’s relationship with Trump was “very unhealthy.”
On CNN on Tuesday, he went further and exposed more embarrassing details. He noted that he doesn’t think she has “a physical attraction” to Trump (“Let’s get real,” he reasoned) but said that she is certainly “infatuated.”
“Trump’s best friends are people who are his fan club,” he said. “That’s probably why he likes her. And, like, she’s good-looking. She’s got a good personality... She thinks that he saved her life, so, like, somebody living with that kind of gratitude, that must feel pretty good.”
Preston was referring to his sister’s bone cancer. Harp, who has been in Trump’s orbit in varying roles since 2018, credits the president with saving her life with legislation that allows people to try non-FDA-approved drugs, although that is contested.
CNN reported on Tuesday that Harp’s devotion knows no bounds. In 2023, when it was discovered that there was no room for the aide in a vehicle taking Trump to court, Harp jumped into the trunk of an SUV to stay with him.
One White House adviser told the network that Trump “likes the attention and the fact that she is 100 percent committed and loyal,” adding that Harp, born into an ultra-Christian household in California, “doesn’t second-guess, doesn’t question.”
However, this arrangement has ruffled feathers in the White House, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Harp acts as a buffer around Trump, and anyone who wants to reach him must go through her. “Printed,” she reportedly responds when she has passed messages to the president. This can cause issues because, according to insiders, she answers only to the president, despite being a White House staffer.
This causes frustration because it means Harp sometimes bypasses the traditional chain of command, namely the chief of staff, the comms team, and national security advisers, according to people familiar with the matter. This is what happened when a racist video depicting the Obamas as apes appeared on Trump’s Truth Social—the established chain of command was bypassed, and it ended in embarrassment for the White House.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that it was Harp, at Trump’s direction, who pulled the trigger on that video, which was later deleted.
Officials have reportedly privately complained that this arrangement means that Harp has also shown Trump material from far-right groups. She is known as his “human printer,” because she is said to physically print material to show the president, who is something of a technophobe.
Ossoff name-dropped Harp in a rally as part of his re-election campaign earlier this week. He referenced the Air Force One escape ploy and Trump’s intense focus on building a ballroom.
“See, he doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
The taunt sparked a MAGA meltdown and saw the president lash out in the Oval Office on Monday, dismissing Ossoff as “a Pee-wee Herman lookalike.”
He spiraled into a tangent about his ballroom, refusing to be drawn on the saga, but CNN’s chief White House correspondent, Kristen Holmes, who asked the question, was called “disgusting” and “callous” afterward.
“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling,” the White House Rapid Response X account added in its seething rebuke.
During an appearance on MSNBC’s The Briefing on Monday, Ossoff doubled down, saying that he had been told Harp acts like the aging president’s “security blanket.”
The blowback centered on the claim that Ossoff was suggesting something untoward with the relationship. There is no proof of this.
But whatever Harp is doing is working. The pair appear to genuinely care for one another. As mentioned, Harp credits Trump as a life-saver, and the president views the young aide as almost part of his family, according to the Journal, citing officials.
In the wake of his infamous arraignment in Fulton County, Georgia, in 2023, he ranted that she was, in fact, the “only one” of his staffers who truly cared for him, The Times reported.
Her standing in his administration can be measured by the intensity of the blowback Ossoff’s comments created. Activists, commentators and officials clamored to slam the 39-year-old Senate re-election hopeful, accusing him of misogyny, sexism and underhand political tactics.
Trump’s foul-mouthed comms director, Steven Cheung, led the charge. “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” he wrote. “Instead of denigrating hard-working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he’s a miserable person who hates this country. It’s because he’s a radical, extremist Dumocrat.”
Trump has a penchant for blondes. He has previously fawned over his outgoing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, 28, and her “machine gun lips.”
However, one very important brunette is reportedly seething about the close ties. In fact, Melania Trump is locked in a secret power struggle with her, according to the president’s biographer, Michael Wolff.
In a new post on his Substack newsletter Howl, Wolff wrote that Harp’s “central presence” in Trump’s life helped explain why the first lady rarely appeared alongside him on the 2024 campaign trail.
“Melania, whose appearances with her husband were carefully negotiated and choreographed, would not show up if Harp was around,” Wolff wrote. “Since Harp was always around, Melania never was—appearing with her husband only in the last week of the campaign.”
The line from the White House is that Harp is a well-respected figure in the administration. “Natalie Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump’s team,” the aforementioned Leavitt insisted in a statement given to the Times.
The Daily Beast has pressed for more information on the newly exposed letter.
