“You are all that matters to me. I miss the days when you used to call.”
That is what Natalie Harp, a close aide to President Donald Trump, wrote in letters she sent him three years ago. The letters, published Thursday by The Daily Beast, expressed Harp’s loyalty to Trump. Harp’s constant presence at Trump’s side has been the focus of attention this week, particularly as first lady Melania Trump has barely been seen in public over the past month.
The relationship between Harp and Trump made headlines after Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioned her by name in a viral speech attacking Trump. The Georgia senator took a jab at the president for having “ travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar” — a reference to her joining the president, along with a very small group of aides, when he secretly boarded a smaller plane to leave Turkey following a threat from Iran last month.
“I want things to always be right between us,,” Harp wrote in one of the letters, which were typed and signed in her handwriting. The letter began, “Dear President,” and ended, “With all my heart, Natalie.”
In a 2023 letter, she added: “I never want to bring you anything but joy. I’m sorry I lost my focus. 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.”
In another letter, also from 2023, Harp recalled their relationship from the period when she was a host at the conservative television network One America News: I miss the days when you used to call, during my Talkshow days, and we’d talk about everything and nothing. I want to get back to that synergy. We shouldn’t have to talk about work all the time!”
The 'human printer,' Natalie Harp
(Photo: AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
In the same letter, she added: “nd please, when I fail, will you tell me? You have the absolute right to cuss me out, if need be, when I deserve it, because no one knows or cares about me more.”
Harp attends all meetings in the Oval Office and stays close to a portable printer that she uses to print social media posts and positive articles for Trump. At the White House, she is known as the “human printer.”
She referred to the nickname in one of her letters, writing that Trump “forced me to unplug” during a trip to Scotland and Ireland.
“I didn’t have to be ‘Human Printer.’ I could take time to enjoy good conversation, and still get all my work done at the end of the day. In fact, I even had time to take long morning and evening walks to enjoy each Sunrise and Sunset (though I did forget to eat and sleep!),” she wrote.
The Daily Beast reported that writer Michael Wolff obtained the letters while working on a book about Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended Harp in a statement to CNN, calling her “one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump’s team.”
The focus on Harp’s relationship with Trump, along with speculation that she is trying to dress like Ivanka Trump, intensified as Melania remained out of public view.
A constant presence in the Oval Office: Harp
(Photo: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
On Thursday, the first lady returned to the White House Rose Garden and greeted the crowd with a brief message.
“I heard you missed me. Here I am,” she said as she stepped up to the podium. The crowd, including the president, burst into laughter.
Harp is so close to Trump that in October 2023 she rode in the trunk of an SUV to accompany him when he appeared at a New York courthouse. CNN, which reported the incident this week, said there was no room for her in the vehicle, but Harp insisted that Trump had personally asked her to come and was determined not to be left behind.
Sources familiar with her work told CNN that Harp is everywhere around Trump. Unlike former personal secretaries and aides — such as Trump’s former personal secretary Madeleine Westerhout, who similarly served as a gatekeeper for information reaching the president during his first term — Harp does not sit outside the Oval Office. She sits inside.
According to the sources, Harp talks with Trump late into the night about social media posts and also serves as a channel through which foreign leaders try to reach the president. She is also the person Trump asks to relay messages to others when he does not want to contact them directly.
Her methods, however, have drawn the ire of senior aides and have at times prompted attempts to push her out of the president’s inner circle.