Donald Trump’s relationship with his 35-year-old blonde assistant has caused consternation and controversy in Washington but it’s not the first time the president has sought comfort from among his staff.
The New York Times political correspondent and co-author of a best-selling Trump biography, Maggie Haberman, says Trump has a habit of leaning on his staff for emotional support.
“She doesn’t really do much outside of work, she works constantly for him. That is something that he has a huge amount of value in,” Haberman said on CNN Friday morning.
“I described her the other day, as a binkie, for lack of a better way of putting it—a comfort blanket.”
Then Haberman said she isn’t the president’s first human binkie.
“There are men who have played that role for him too,” she explained.
“One of them would be Boris Epshteyn. He is [Trump’s] legal adviser,” Haberman said, adding that “the president describes him as his psychiatrist.
“[Trump] says ‘you know sometimes you just want somebody to tell you everything is going to be ok’—that is a lot of what the president values.”
Haberman’s observations about the aging president have long riled Trump. Her book Regime Change, with co-author Jonathan Swan, sold more than 500,000 copies in its first month on the shelves, and is the best-selling non-fiction book of 2026 so far.
The book has enraged the president, who has used his Truth Social platform on more than one occasion to rail against it. In it, Haberman and Swan say Trump described Harp as the “only one who loves him as much as his wife and children.”
Harp works as special assistant and executive assistant to the president, earning about $150,000 a year. She is under scrutiny for her intense devotion to Trump and is reportedly locked in a power struggle with first lady Melania Trump.
Trump’s other binkie, Boris Epshteyn, has advised Trump on his campaigns since 2016 and, since 2025, has been his personal legal counsel.
Epshteyn, 44, is a Russian-American lawyer who has been linked to the Trump campaign’s ‘fake electors’ plot, and was indicted in Arizona for his role in the alleged scheme in 2024.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
