INSIDE LOOK

Natalie Harp’s Brother Reveals Truth of Bitter Family Feud

Preston Harp has detailed how he fell out with his sister, Trump’s most adoring aide.

The estranged brother of President Donald Trump’s most loyal aide has spilled new details on what he views as his sister’s “obsession” with the president.

Natalie Harp’s brother Preston, who has been estranged from his sister and mother for several years, told the Washington Post that the final tipping point in their family was the way they went about their father’s death.

Preston, 38, said he received a phone call from Natalie, 35, in 2020, during which Preston, who remained close to his father while distancing himself from his mother and sister, found out that his father had died by suicide in their California home. He credits his father’s deteriorating mental state and ultimate death with the mental toll that the pandemic took at the time.

He said the two wanted to keep the father’s cause of death private and say he died in his sleep, but he said that was the disagreement that ultimately broke their family.

“I just said, ‘I’m going to say what the police said,’” Preston said. “He hung himself in the garage.”

But he explained that Natalie then moved deeper into the MAGA space as she became convinced of Trump’s election lies. She also spoke at the Republican National Convention as she proclaimed that Trump saved her life while she was receiving cancer treatment.

Preston, too, has gone on a political journey, instead veering leftward, calling himself “radicalized.” He has since moved to Nicaragua and has joined the Sandinistas, whom he said he is prepared to die for.

He explained that around 2019 their father had become increasingly frustrated that his wife and daughter were becoming such fans of Trump. He said that his late father “was not a fan” of Trump.

Natalie’s role within Trump’s orbit ramped up when in 2019 she wrote a LinkedIn post crediting Trump with saving her life, which earned her an interview with Fox News. Trump later called into the program to call her an “incredible, unbelievable young woman.”

“She lit up the television screen like very few people I’ve ever seen do it,” Preston said of that moment.

He said that his political journey only accelerated after his sister spoke at the RNC.

He explained that their father had endured very strict protocol to protect themselves from COVID-19, due to Natalie’s immunocompromised state as a cancer survivor, so it upset him to see that she was speaking out about socialism, maskless, across the country in South Carolina.

A source close to the family also told the Post that Bob “was an extrovert, and the isolation of working on computer screens all day was difficult for him.”

When speaking about their childhood, he detailed that their mother homeschooled both of them “in the hopes of indoctrinating us with conservative Christian and patriotic values.”

He explained that when he was 15, he was allowed to enroll in a local debate club in San Diego, where he says he was first exposed to liberal viewpoints. Preston explained that while he wound up renouncing traditional Christianity altogether, Natalie never rebelled against what he called a conservative upbringing.

“I had friends, and I could talk to them,” he said. “My sister didn’t have a peer group.”

Preston has previously called her sister’s relationship with Trump “unhealthy.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on Preston’s account. When reached for comment previously, the White House has offered a simple canned statement on Harp, from former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt calling Harp “one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump’s team.”

Harp, who is paid $150,000 a year in her capacity as Trump’s special assistant and executive assistant, is always by the president’s side. She accompanies him on official travel overseas and spends nearly every weekend golfing with him.

She is also said to have left Trump with fawning letters. In letters first published in full by the Daily Beast, Harp expressed her devotion to Trump, calling him her “Guardian and Protector” and saying that he was “all that matters” to her.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

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Annabella RosciglioneReporter

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