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Getty ImagesBernd Debusmann JrWhite House reporter
Few people in US President Donald Trump’s orbit have appeared as frequently by his side as Natalie Harp in recent years.
One of Trump’s longest-serving and most loyal aides, 35-year-old Harp is trusted with typing out his Truth Social posts, among other top responsibilities.
She was thrust again into the spotlight this week by Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff – a Democrat and frequent Trump foil – when he recently name-checked her during a speech that has since gone viral.
Ossoff attacked Trump’s “travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar”, referring to the new Air Force One plane as well as to reports that Harp joined Trump – and a small group of people – when he secretly swapped planes leaving Turkey last month.
Here is what you need to know about the Trump assistant who has been called both a “gatekeeper” and a “comfort blanket”.
A California native and member of a conservative Christian family, Harp followed an unorthodox path into an already unconventional White House.
She rose to fame by crediting Trump with saving her life.
In his first term, Trump got the Right to Try Act passed to give some patients greater access to experimental treatments, which Harp used for her bone cancer. She quickly gained prominence and popularity in Trump’s Maga (Make America Great Again) wing of the Republican party talking about the experience, and soon after joined an advisory board for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
“When I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials,” she said at the 2020 Republican National Convention. “They didn’t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr President. You did, and without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”
After the event, Trump said: “She lit up the television screen like very few people I have ever seen do it.”
Following Trump’s loss in that election, Harp found work hosting a show at the conservative One Americans News Network, or OAN.
There, she became known as a ferocious Trump defender and prominent election denier. She left the network in 2022 to join Trump’s next presidential campaign.
Most accounts of Trump’s views of Harp come via anonymous second-hand sources in books by reporters such as Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan or Michael Wolff, and very little is publicly known about her private life.
Now, Harp’s official title at the White House is executive assistant to the president, which typically denotes a lower tier position that entails managing logistics, scheduling, communications flow and mundane – but vital – secretarial work.
By all accounts, though, Harp has given the role new meaning and her profile is significantly higher than that of her predecessors, such as Madeleine Westerhout in Trump’s first administration.
Reporters at the White House frequently see Harp standing just feet away from Trump in the Oval Office or boarding Air Force One for many of his domestic and international trips.
“She’s always around,” one source close to the White House told the BBC. “Literally, always.”
Among White House insiders and members of the press, she is often referred to as the “human printer” because she is often spotted carrying a portable printer to provide Trump with hard copies of articles and social media posts, which he prefers.
In practice, this means that Harp has an out-sized ability to control what information or updates Trump receives, according to another source familiar with White House operations.
Other anonymous sources have described her to US media outlets as a “gatekeeper” and “comfort blanket”.
Harp also serves as something of a social media scribe for Trump, posting to his Truth Social account on his behalf.
In one image that has been widely shared in the aftermath of Ossoff’s comments, Harp is shown typing a post – in the president’s own writing style – as he dictates to her while watching a speech of Kamala Harris in 2024.
Amid the recent focus on Harp, the White House has described her as a “trusted and valued” member of the team, although Trump has rarely spoken about her on camera.
Ossoff was one of many Trump critics who noted Harp was reportedly on the plane that the president boarded to leave Turkey after the US supposedly received information about a threat from Iran.
Reporter Haberman, who has also reported extensively on Trump’s presidencies, was asked during an appearance on the news network MSNOW why Trump took Harp with him on the secret plane: “Because she is sort of his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket.”
Haberman and Swan reported for the New York Times in 2024 that Harp had supposedly written in a letter to Trump: “You are all that matters to me.”
When a CNN reporter earlier this week asked Trump about Ossoff’s comments, the White House reacted angrily on its official X account, describing the reporter, Kristen Holmes, as “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession”.
“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” another post directed to Holmes read. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.”
Donald TrumpUS politicsUnited States
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