When Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) made a comment about “Natalie” last month, he thrust President Donald Trump’s special executive assistant Natalie Harp into the spotlight. Previously, reports have revealed that she’s referred to as the president’s “human printer,” due to her process of printing out news stories for him.
She’s become so important to the commander-in-chief that Harper received a $45,000 cash gift for the holidays from Trump, according to financial disclosures reported on this week. That’s on top of a $150,000 annual salary.
“While he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings,” said Ossoff during that Aug. 16 campaign rally. “He golfs and trades stocks. So, 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.”
Trump has not only flown on that controversial jet with Harp, but on a secret flight out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Turkey in August. Harp was, according to CNN, “one of the very few people” who accompanied Trump in a catering truck to a smaller plane while other members of the Trump team left the country on the larger Air Force One plane.
“If you’re really friends and loyal to your team, why would you just go peace out and go on another plane if you thought the other plane was going to get shot down?” said Harp’s estranged brother, Preston, in an interview with CNN. He also said he thinks his sister is “obsessed” with Trump when a story about her riding in the trunk of his SUV was mentioned.
Harp – who graduated with an MBA from Liberty University, according to the college – entered the spotlight during Trump’s first term when she made a LinkedIn post about how his policies helped her get treatment for a rare bone cancer. Parts of this narrative have been questioned, with some arguing that the treatments Harp has referred to were available before the Trump policy moves she credits with helping her.
Harp’s brother said that she believes that Trump saved her life. He also mentioned that their mother, who homeschooled them, taught “American exceptionalism”. Harp grew up in Evangelical Christianity. Her father, who was an administrator at Biola University at the time of his death, died by suicide in 2020, according to the Los Angeles Times.
After hearing Harp give a speech where she talked about cancer treatment, Trump invited her to appear at the 2020 Republican National Convention, Time noted. David Corn, a journalist covering Trump for Mother Jones and an upcoming book, noted that Harp then joined One America News (OAN), a far-right media outlet with ties to Russia. She then left OAN and became an aide for Trump.
In 2024, The Bulwark reported that Harp “occupies a unique role in the history of presidential campaigns: aide who travels with a portable printer (plus paper and rechargeable batteries in a large bag) whose job is to feed Trump a steady stream of information on 8.5x11″ pieces of paper.”
It went on to say that “with her portable printer at the ready, Harp is constantly around Trump –whether she’s sitting close to the defense table in the Manhattan courthouse on weekdays or riding the links with Trump on Sundays in Florida,” and that “perhaps more than anyone else, Harp gatekeeps much of what Trump sees on social media and reads in the news.”
She also reportedly writes many of the president’s social media posts.
However, Harp wasn’t the only staffer who received a cash gift from Trump. Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris, both also special assistants to the president, also received the cash gifts. Mother Jones noted this week that the “national gossip” about Harp had “reached the natural stage to which most stories closely associated with the president land: a glaring, potentially illegal ethics violation.”
Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, also raised the ethics issue with Newsweek. He “believes the payments violate federal law and could ultimately carry both legal and political consequences, including impeachment,” the outlet said.
Meanwhile, the White House said the gifts are simply a continuation of a longstanding practice.
“The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector,” the White House said in a statement posted to social media. “The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”
Mother Jones said that this statement tracks: “Trump indeed has a habit of dropping random wads of cash onto unsuspecting beneficiaries, from DoorDash drivers delivering his McDonald’s to undocumented workers at his golf resorts.”
This generosity might be appreciated among his inner circle, but American voters’ support for the president has been slipping as they deal with economic pressure. A continuing conflict between the U.S. and Iran contributing to national average gas prices staying over $4 per gallon for most of the summer, according to AAA, hasn’t helped matters for Trump.
