A White House meeting spiraled out of control and ended badly between President Donald Trump and a former ally.
The meeting, which began with school choice on the agenda, quickly turned into a full-blown spectacle after Natalie Harp interjected herself
Trump was left raging, and one U.S. senator couldn’t believe how quickly Natalie Harp’s unexpected delivery turned the meeting upside down.
Trump erupted in anger after an aide informed him of what was being said about him on social media.
Sen. Ted Cruz recalled witnessing Trump unravel in real time after being handed a printed copy of a social media post accusing him of appearing in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Cruz described the June 2025 encounter during a recent episode of conservative influencer Patrick Bet-David’s “PBD Podcast.”
According to Cruz, the meeting was underway when an aide brought Trump a printout of the post from Elon Musk.
The Tesla and X co-founder had publicly accused Trump of being included in records connected to Epstein. He also questioned why the documents had not been released.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,” Musk wrote in the now deleted June 2025 post. “That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
After Trump learned of it, Cruz said the material immediately changed the mood inside the Oval Office.
At the time, Cruz had gone to the White House hoping to persuade Trump to support a school choice provision. Instead, he watched as the president’s “knuckles turn white” over Musk’s accusations.
“So Trump, now, he’s not on his phone anymore nearly as much,” Cruz explained on the “PBD Podcast.” “So what happens when something gets tweeted is [it’s] printed out. Natalie comes in, printed on a piece of paper and hands it to him. And he literally reads that tweet.”
The episode also offered a glimpse into the role Natalie Harp plays in Trump’s White House operation.
Harp, 35, joined Trump’s orbit in 2022. She became his personal assistant after leaving her career as an anchor and host for the conservative One America News Network.
Cruz said Trump now receives printed versions of social media posts because the president is less active on his phone, with Harp often serving as the person who brings the material directly to him.
Harp has previously been described as Trump’s “human printer” because of the range of tasks she handles for the president.
Those duties have included printing articles, conducting internet searches, retrieving items and helping prepare potential posts for Trump’s social media accounts.
Cruz said he initially did not know what was causing Trump’s reaction. He soon realized it was Musk’s post.
“It happens that second?” Bet-David asked.
“They hand it to him that second. … And he was so pissed,” Cruz said. “I joked I learned some curse words I didn’t even know.”
Cruz said the school choice discussion effectively ended once Trump read the post.
“I’m sitting in the Oval, and his knuckles turn white. I don’t know what it is yet. I mean, he shows it to us,” Cruz said. “And he was so pissed.”
“I joked, I learned some curse words I didn’t even know,” Cruz added. “And I will say our school choice meeting went off the rails and like we were done talking about school choice and, and Trump had some technicolor views to say about Elon.”
I want to hear what curse words Trump used. The moment sounds explosive.
The June 2025 confrontation came during an increasingly public breakdown between Trump and Musk, who had previously been political allies.
Musk’s now deleted post accused Trump of being connected to the Epstein files and suggested that the records were being withheld because of the president. Musk later followed up with another post telling readers to save his statement because, he claimed, the truth would eventually emerge.
The dispute between the two men eventually cooled, and Cruz said he was glad to see it.
“Now I’m glad they have patched it up. I’m good friends with Elon as well,” Cruz said. “It was not good for America to have the two of them battling.”
Still, Cruz said he would not forget what he witnessed that day inside the Oval Office.
“It was not good for America to have the two of them battling,” he said, describing the moment as “a hand grenade thrown in the middle of everything.”
