Who Is Trump Aide Natalie Harp?

Photo: Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images

In 2018, we were horrified and delighted to learn that Trump received transcripts of his Twitter rants and wrote his confused responses in Sharpie for a 24-year-old social media executive to write. This week, we got some new insight into how the president-elect’s confused social media activity has unfolded. According to New York TimesNatalie Harp — a 33-year-old aide nicknamed his “human printer” by her colleagues — reportedly feeds him an unfiltered stream of conspiracy theories and posts her Truth Social dictates without a second thought.

Harp and Trump crossed paths for the first time in 2019, when she appeared on Fox News to thank him for saving her life by signing the Right to Try Act, which she claims gave her access to experimental treatments for bone cancer. (It is unclear what these treatments were, and some experts claimed that Harp had received treatments that were allowed long before Trump’s Right to Try Act). After that spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention. She spent the next two years spouting conspiracy theories that the election was stolen as an anchor on the far-right cable news network One America News before joining his staff in 2022, and she’s apparently been a fixture at his side ever since.

According to Timeswho spoke to a half-dozen anonymous insiders, Harp’s primary responsibility is to relay unsupervised, overwhelmingly flattering news to Trump, much of it from Gateway Pundita far-right website known for spreading conspiracy theories and hoaxes. During his campaign, she would apparently give him hard copies of these articles by following him around with a portable printer and battery pack—hence her humiliating nickname. Also apparently part of Harp’s unofficial job description: enabling Trump’s most impulsive social media habits by taking dictation for his Truth Social tirades. She is said to have helped him pull the trigger on angry texts to donors, chaotic retweets and other classic Trump decisions that have sent his lawyers into panic mode.

But Harp’s greatest strength in Trumpworld appears to be an alarming level of devotion to her boss. During one of Trump’s golf outings, she apparently once jogged behind his cart and kept him updated with positive news and social media posts. In return, he apparently calls her “sweet” and treats her like a daughter (ugh, especially considering the way Trump talks about his actual daughters). Over the years, their relationship has only gotten weirder – last year Times claims she sent Trump a series of letters in which she called him her “Guardian and Protector in this life” and wrote “You are all that matters to me” and “I will never let you down.”

Trump’s transition team declined to make Harp available to Times for an interview, of course. Anonymous sources close to him predict that, assuming she follows him to the White House, she will continue to provide a “largely unmonitored flow of information” while enabling his most chaotic impulses. It sounds like a very stable workplace scenario that will surely result in good, clear solutions for everyone. I hope some Lifetime screenwriters are watching!