President-elect Donald Trump is irate at The New York Times after last Monday’s publication of an article spotlighting his most loyal aide, a 33-year-old bone cancer survivor who once wrote the real estate mogul, “I want to bring you joy.”
Disclosure of those letters apparently enraged Trump, who launched a blistering attack on TruthSocial early Tuesday morning against one of the article’s authors, Maggie Haberman.
Ironically, the person who most likely transcribed those posts was the subject of the article, Natalie Harp.
“Will the failing New York Times apologize to its readers for years of ‘Trump’ coverage so wrong. They write such phony ‘junk,’ knowing full well how incorrect it is, only meaning to demean,” Trump wrote. “Magot Hagerman, a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect, writes story after story, always terrible, and yet I almost never speak to her. They do no fact checking, because facts don’t matter to them. I don’t believe I’ve had a legitimately good story in the NYT for years, AND YET I WON, IN RECORD FASHION, THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN DECADES. WHERE IS THE APOLOGY?”
Harp, The Times reports, is “nearly always at Mr. Trump’s side,” although she has no official title.
“Once, when Mr. Trump was playing golf in Scotland, she ran behind his cart to keep him up to date with positive stories and social media posts,” the story continued.
That proximity concerns some in his inner circle, as Harp, a native Californian, is set to play an outsized role in the upcoming administration. She often decides what information gets to Trump, who’s known to recycle conspiracy theories that are favorable to him.
Haberman goes on to describe her as an “instant enabler of (Trump’s) impulses” at a time when “Mr. Trump appears more contemptuous than ever of attempts to manage or control him.”
Harp has demonstrated no such tendencies. Rather, as she wrote in a series of letters sent to Trump in 2023, “I don’t ever want to let you down.” She thanked her boss for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.”
Harp first came to the once and future president’s attention in 2019 when she appeared on Fox News and credited the “Right to Try” law, signed by Trump in 2018, for giving her access to experimental treatments she says saved her life.
“You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in another missive.
Harp also wrote wistfully about “that synergy” they used to share, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.”
Trump, the Times reports, thinks of Harp, whom he calls “sweetie,” as a daughter. He has remained loyal to her after she was one of the few aides who remained loyal to him following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Harp joined his staff in 2022 after leaving her job as an anchor on One America News Network, a far-right network that acts as a cheerleader for Trump’s policies.
When the then-former president was arraigned in Fulton County, Georgia, in 2023, he reportedly said Harp “was the only member of his staff who cared about him.”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said she was “trusted and valued” and credited her “work ethic and dedication” for helping Trump win the election.
But her close relationship with Trump means that she has often worked outside the normal chain of command.
“When people seeking influence with Mr. Trump want to turn him against their rivals, they send damaging clips to Ms. Harp, knowing she will pass them along, unvetted,” the Times reports.
