The president’s executive assistant was among a small group of people who secretly switched planes with Trump over a potential Iranian threat, as noted by Sen. Jon Ossoff.
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Natalie Harp, one of President Donald Trump’s most loyal and longest-serving aides, is in the spotlight after Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) invoked the 35-year-old while criticizing the president in a reelection campaign rally.
Ossoff, widely floated as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, noted that Harp was among the small group of people who joined Trump when he covertly swapped planes last month in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat in Turkey.
Here’s what to know about one of Trump’s ever-present White House aides.
Harp’s official title is executive assistant to the president, a role that in previous administrations involved a mix of coordination, communication management and other secretarial duties.
Harp’s role in Trump’s White House is slightly different. She is known by some in Trump’s orbit as the “human printer” — a frequent presence at his side with hard copies of news articles, social media posts and messages for the president, including during golf outings. Because Trump prefers reading on paper, Harp has a tremendous amount of influence over what information makes it in front of the president.
Harp routinely posts for the president on his Truth Social account. Video resurfaced this week showing Trump watching a speech by then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and dictating possible posts next to Harp, who typed them up in real time and sent them out with his signature style, including sporadically capitalized words and exclamation points.
In between Trump’s presidencies, Harp was part of Trump’s inner circle of supporters who worked for him at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate. Some other aides distanced themselves from the president after his first term, following his two impeachments and multiple criminal investigations. Harp also was an adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign and an aide to his 2024 campaign.
Ossoff appeared to mention Harp at a rally Sunday, putting a renewed spotlight on the aide.
“He golfs and trades stocks. 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,” Ossoff said, drawing a loud response from the crowd in Georgia.
A CNN reporter asked Trump about Ossoff’s comments Monday, to which the president responded by disparaging Ossoff’s appearance and accosting the reporter about her question.
Later, the White House’s “rapid response” team posted a video of the exchange on X, calling the reporter a “disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession” and mentioning her children.
In a statement to The Washington Post, White House spokesman Davis Ingle called Harp “one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump’s team” and called Ossoff’s rhetoric “cringeworthy.”
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Before becoming a member of Trump’s close circle, Harp described herself as a self-employed entrepreneur. Diagnosed with Stage 2 bone cancer in the early 2010s, she has repeatedly credited a law signed by Trump in his first term with saving her life by giving her access to experimental treatment.
“We all know the story about the Good Samaritan. But what you don’t know is I was that forgotten person on the side of the road … and left to die of cancer,” Harp recounted at an event with the president in 2019. “But then, an outsider — my Good Samaritan, President Donald J. Trump — he saw me there, and he didn’t walk by. He stopped.”
Experts told The Post in 2020 that it was unlikely the law had any effect on her case. The drug Harp credited Trump with helping her gain access to was already approved by the Food and Drug Administration at the time she received it. Experts said she would have been able to access it without “Right to Try,” which is a pathway to access medication not yet approved by the FDA.
Harp’s story landed her on Trump’s radar and a spot at the 2020 Republican National Convention, where she again credited him with saving her life.
Harp was a host on the right-wing One America News from 2020 to 2022 where she praised the president and his policies on her show “The Real Story.”
The Post in 2022 reported that some longtime aides were distressed by the influence of Harp, who was rarely absent from Trump’s side and is said to cater attentively to his need for constant praise.
“Like other staffers, I do spend time with him,” Harp wrote in an email response in 2022, adding that she has “a great respect” for Trump.
When Trump secretly left the Air Force One jet in light of a potential Iranian assassination threat in Turkey in July, he did not bring Cabinet officials along with him to a separate military jet. But he did bring some of his loyal and longest-serving aides, including Harp, Post reporting found.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told MS NOW that said she could guess why Harp was among those transferred to a secret plane with Trump: “Natalie Harp, because she is sort of his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket,” Haberman said. She said that aide Walt Nauta, who was a co-defendant in a case brought against Trump for allegedly handling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, served a similar role.
Haberman added that it may also have been because Harp, along with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, has “some access to slash control over his social media.”
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