Natalie Harp

Before the summer of 2026 few ordinary Americans knew that Natalie Harp was one of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s closest aides. But the world leaders she texts with on behalf of Trump know her. As a result of an elaborate ruse to ensure the president’s safety in the wake of a suspected Iranian plot to assassinate him, her role came under greater scrutiny. So who is Natalie Harp?

Early life

Natalie Harp was born in 1991, the second child of Jill and Robert Harp. She grew up in California, where she and her older brother Preston were raised in a conservative Christian home and homeschooled by their mother. Robert Harp was a real estate businessman who died by suicide in 2020.

Natalie Harp graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University, a private Christian college in San Diego, in 2012 before earning an M.B.A. from Liberty University in Virginia in 2015.

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Catching Donald Trump’s attention

Harp appeared on a segment of Fox & Friends in 2019 to praise Trump’s Right to Try Act, passed in 2018, which allows patients with life-threatening conditions to pursue experimental treatments. Harp had been diagnosed with bone cancer, and she credited the legislation with saving her life. Trump saw the segment and called in to the program, saying of Harp, “I think she’s one of the best guests you’ve ever had.” In 2020 Harp made a brief speech at the Republican National Convention, telling her story again.

Harp went on to work as an anchor on the pro-Trump One America News Network before leaving in 2022 to join Trump’s staff. Trump has been described as treating Harp like a daughter, and he values her loyalty, which was manifested on January 6, 2021, when she reportedly tweeted some 150 times expressing her support for the president. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Harp gained the nickname “the human printer” for the way she followed Trump around carrying a mobile printer and providing him with printouts of news reports and social media posts.

Working in the White House

With Trump’s win in the 2024 election, Harp moved into the more official role of special assistant and executive assistant to Trump. But the assistant titles have failed to convey the proximity and influence Harp wields. She sits right outside the Oval Office, where she is often seen sitting in on meetings. She regularly flies on Marine One and Air Force One. She is the architect of many of Trump’s Truth Social posts. She was also the aide who showed Trump the graphic video of the assassination of his close political ally Charlie Kirk, and she often controls what news Trump sees and does not see.

Despite being an omnipresent part of the second Trump administration, Harp rarely made headlines (although both The New York Times and The Washington Post had written about her insider status). That is until the Secret Service—acting on intelligence about a possible assassination attempt by Iranian proxies—secreted the president off Air Force One on July 8, 2026. Among the handful of people secreted away with the president in a food catering truck and onto another plane was Harp. Administration officials who were left aboard the plane that the world presumed the president was on included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

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In August, when Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff name-checked Harp in a campaign speech, saying of Trump, “See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar,” all semblance of Harp being behind the scenes disappeared.

The White House, for its part, defended Harp as “a loyal and hardworking member of President Trump’s team,” going on the offensive on social media against journalists who questioned the president about Ossoff’s comment. But additional reporting revealed that Harp worked in a role in the White House in which she had access to the president’s communications and other documents without a security clearance for a year. She obtained it once Trump became involved in the matter.

Parts of flattering letters that Harp wrote to the president were also leaked to the media, including one from 2023 in which she wrote, “You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my Guardian and Protector in this Life.” Some top White House officials, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, reportedly found the letters confounding. Whatever the controversy, Trump sees Harp as almost being a part of his family. According to Regime Change, the 2026 book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Trump says that the only people who love him as much as Harp are his wife and children.

In September 2026, documents released by the White House revealed that Trump had made a "Cash gift for Holidays" to Harp and several other aides. Harp’s gift was $45,000 in addition to her government salary of $150,000. The White House defended the gifts as in keeping with the president’s practice of giving presents to employees. However, government ethics officials questioned with such gifts violate rules against such supplements to government pay.