The extraordinary story of President Donald Trump being spirited away from Air Force One inside a catering container after an Iranian threat to the aircraft offered Americans yet another fascinating episode in the reality show that has surrounded him for the past decade.
One particularly revealing detail was who Trump chose to take with him aboard the secure military aircraft that flew him from Turkey to England, and who he left behind without hesitation on the threatened plane.
Among those who remained behind were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s most influential policy advisers. Apart from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who openly boarded the military aircraft as part of the deception operation, those fortunate enough to accompany Trump were less familiar names but apparently far more important to the president personally.
One of them was Natalie Harp, 34, a woman who is almost always at the side of the 80-year-old Trump. And when we say always, we really mean always.
Officially, Harp is a special and executive assistant to the president. In practice, she is also an extraordinarily devoted admirer whose closeness to Trump has repeatedly raised eyebrows among members of his inner circle.
(Photo: AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Harp, a former presenter on the far-right One America News network, became close to Trump after battling bone cancer and publicly crediting him with helping her gain access to experimental treatment through the federal Right to Try law. Trump signed the law in May 2018.
At the 2020 Republican National Convention, not 2024 as stated in the original Hebrew version, Harp addressed Trump directly and said: “I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for you.” She continued: “They didn’t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You did. And without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”
According to Regime Change, the new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Harp regularly left Trump adoring letters during the campaign, including in his personal spaces. One of them read: “You are all that matters to me.”
Harp also attends Oval Office meetings and keeps a portable printer close at hand, using it to print social media posts and positive news articles for Trump. Her constant stream of printouts earned her the nickname “the human printer.”
She also has access to Trump’s social media accounts and has taken on posting duties for the president. The Wall Street Journal has reported that she has frustrated some White House officials by typically not circulating draft posts to the chief of staff’s office, communications aides or national security officials before they are published.
But perhaps the clearest indication of Harp’s unusual place in Trump’s orbit came shortly after the beginning of his second term. According to Haberman and Swan, Trump told staff that Harp was “the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids.” He then added: “All of you will go off and make money. She’ll never leave me.”
That makes it a little easier to understand why, when seats aboard the secure military aircraft became particularly valuable, Natalie Harp had one.