{"id":5342,"date":"2026-08-26T06:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T06:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5342"},"modified":"2026-08-26T06:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T06:36:11","slug":"natalie-harp-is-close-to-trump-but-not-for-the-reason-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5342","title":{"rendered":"Natalie Harp is close to Trump \u2014 but not for the reason you think"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s close aide, Natalie Harp, has received harsh criticism recently, from journalists who speculate she is \u201cunwell\u201d to commentators who speculate the notoriously philandering Trump has an inappropriate relationship with her.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s midterm plan is to do exactly what Democrats want<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLong before Harp sprinted down the fairways of a Scottish golf course in an effort to catch up with Trump\u2019s motorcade, I heard plenty of stories about the absurd lengths people went to for \u2018the boss,\u2019\u201d wrote Sarah Matthews, former deputy press secretary to the White House. \u201cStaff reportedly steamed his pants while he was still wearing them. Trump would also ask aides to take mirrors from events if he thought they made him look especially flatteringly slim. Another time, he asked aides to steal sculptures from the U.S. embassy in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews added, \u201cI worked on Trump\u2019s 2020 campaign from June 2019 through June 2020. After that, I joined the White House press shop, where I served as White House deputy press secretary up until January 6, 2021. Back then, there was no one quite like Harp inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the office environments, bordering on a king\u2019s court, that have allowed her to become such a critical figure with such remarkable access were already very apparent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former staffer then described the White House under Trump as analogous to the reality TV show he hosted shortly before becoming president, \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d in which everyone had to tread carefully and behave like a sycophant in order to avoid getting fired. She also described how Trump behaved inappropriately with one young female staffer in particular, asking that she travel with him often and using a vulgar term to describe ogling her. Finally, she pointed out that Trump staffers frequently leaked negative information about each other in order to play to Trump\u2019s ego and get rivals punished.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe steady stream of leaks about Harp tells me some of her colleagues clearly have it out for her,\u201d Matthews wrote. \u201cPublicly, they\u2019ll defend her and fling accusations of misogyny at anyone who questions her closeness to Trump. They do so because they know she controls the flow of information to him and they need her on their side. But privately, it\u2019s obvious some of them think she\u2019s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs\u2014and that\u2019s really saying something in an administration staffed almost entirely by fellow toadies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more White House UFO adviser says space aliens don\u2019t care who the president is<\/a><\/p>\n

She added, \u201cSome may look at the fact that Harp has become so weirdly close to the president in such a short amount of time and assume something sexual must be going on between them. I don\u2019t. While their relationship is deeply bizarre, I think Harp simply understands just how Trump operates. He wants emotional support blankets; he wants people who never push back; he wants to be put on a pedestal. Harp is just better at the game than anyone else . . . for now. The problem with making your career\u2014and life\u2014about being the boss\u2019s favorite is that he can always change his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews concluded, \u201cGood luck, Natalie.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast to Harp\u2019s approach to her job, a former staffer who held an analogous position under President Barack Obama recently described his position as much less bizarre.<\/p>\n

“I know something about this particular job,” Greg Greene recently explained in The New Republic. “I managed President Barack Obama\u2019s partisan social media accounts over much of the first year of his presidency. It\u2019s fair to say this was a more innocent age. The watchwords I took to the work were ones like safeguards and restraint, instead of poop jet and ‘What if we depicted the president as Jesus Christ.’ A president\u2019s statements, I knew, could move markets even if ventriloquized by twenty- and thirtysomethings working to channel the top guy\u2019s voice. At every point, my colleagues and I took intentional steps to guard against loose words.”<\/p>\n

Read more Fox News \u2018liberal\u2019 wishes Trump had won in 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s close aide, Natalie Harp, has received harsh criticism recently, from journalists who speculate she is \u201cunwell\u201d to commentators who speculate the notoriously philandering Trump has an inappropriate relationship with her.\u201cLong before Harp sprinted down the fairways of a Scott…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNatalie Harp is close to Trump \u2014 but not for the reason you think - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5342\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Natalie Harp is close to Trump \u2014 but not for the reason you think - 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