Natalie Harp, 35, has privately chafed at being called Donald Trump’s “human printer,” leaked personal letters reveal, even as the nickname has become cemented in Washington parlance.
The special assistant to the president, who works at a desk directly outside the Oval Office on a reported $150,000 salary, earned the moniker for her habit of printing out pro-Trump news stories for him to read in hard copy. But in a letter to Trump obtained by the New York Times, Harp pushed back on the label, writing: “I don’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.”
She added that she’d found time for “long morning and evening walks” to watch the sunrise and sunset, “though I did forget to eat and sleep!”
The letters, written before Trump began his second term as president, paint a picture of intense devotion that has alarmed some in the West Wing. In one, she wrote: “You are all that matters to me,” and “I don’t want to ever let you down.” Another apparently addressed an incident on a golf course in Scotland, with Harp writing: “I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course,” after footage reportedly showed her running to keep pace with Trump’s golf cart. She continued: “I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week.”
Harp’s loyalty stems from a stage 2 bone cancer diagnosis that she says Trump helped her survive. After failing available chemotherapy treatments and being turned away from clinical trials, she was able to access experimental treatment after Trump signed the Right to Try law during his first term. “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,” she has said. She spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention and later spent two years as an anchor on the far-right One America News Network before joining Trump’s team in 2022.
The “human printer” tag isn’t the only nickname attached to Harp. New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman said’s Wolf Blitzer that Harp has effectively become Trump’s “binky, or comfort blanket.” In their book “Regime Change,” Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported that Trump remarked of Harp to staffers, “All of you will go off and make money. She’ll never leave me.” Her brother, Preston Harp, said: “She’s his biggest fan, and so that’s probably why he likes her. And she’s good-looking, she’s got a good personality.”
Harp’s rising profile has brought scrutiny. She was reportedly evacuated alongside Trump in a catering truck during a security operation at Ankara airport last month, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other senior officials and the White House press corps were left behind. MS NOW has also reported that Harp went without standard security vetting for around a year, declining multiple times to complete the SF-86 paperwork normally required for West Wing staffers, with President Trump himself eventually intervening to push the process forward.
Former White House staffer Norm Eisen said: “It is shocking that an aide who has potential exposure to the nation’s most sensitive secrets reportedly went without a security clearance for so long.” Three people who spoke with MS NOW said the Secret Service raised multiple security concerns about Harp internally during Trump’s first year of his second term, both about her access to the president and her failure to obtain a security clearance. One national security official voiced concern that Harp’s proximity to Trump gives her access to highly sensitive information that few other senior White House officials would be privy to.
Outgoing press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded by insisting Harp “has a security clearance like everyone else, and she is a loyal and hardworking member of President Trump’s team.” White House communications director Steven Cheung fired back at Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff after he accused Trump of preferring to travel with Harp rather than “do a proper job of being the POTUS,” calling Ossoff “the biggest loser in politics.”
In the viral moment that intensified scrutiny of Harp, Ossoff said at a Sunday campaign rally that Trump wants to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” Trump replied about Ossoff when asked Monday in the Oval Office: “You mean Pee-wee Herman? Pee-wee Herman look-alike?” The president’s social media team also attacked a CNN reporter who asked about Ossoff’s comment, calling her “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.”
Harp’s role extends to managing Trump’s social media presence. She is known to help draft his Truth Social posts, and a 2024 clip from the Apple TV documentary “The Art of the Surge” showed her rapidly taking dictation from Trump as he composed a post targeting former Vice President Kamala Harris. “Get that out right away,” Trump directed her in the footage. Body language expert Judi James described Harp as appearing “unfazed and loyal” while helping Trump, calling her “the vector between his sometimes rambled thoughts and the dramatic words that appear on his social media posts.”
Eric Trump, the president’s son, defended Harp in a statement, calling her “an incredible young woman — a cancer survivor, a genuinely good person, and arguably one of the hardest-working people in the White House.”
Trump is scheduled to travel to Bedminster, New Jersey, for the weekend.