Cancer survivor went from 2020 convention speech to White House post
Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a possible 2028 presidential contender, accused President Donald Trump in a campaign speech of wanting to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie” instead of doing his job — an apparent reference to Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant. The remark set off a wave of online speculation about the nature of the relationship and a sharp response from the White House, according to The Guardian, putting the 35-year-old Californian in the public eye.
The confrontation escalated Monday, when Trump responded to CNN reporter Kristen Holmes after she asked a question about Ossoff’s comments. The White House’s anonymous “Rapid Response” team posted at Holmes: “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question.” Far from quieting the speculation, The Guardian reported, the response enhanced Ossoff’s standing among Democrats and drew wider attention to the question.
Harp’s official title is special assistant to the president and executive assistant to the president, on an annual salary of $150,000. Her unofficial role was captured during the 2024 campaign, when colleagues referred to her as the “human printer.” As The New York Times reported, she followed “Mr Trump around with a portable printer and a battery pack to charge it, so she could hand him information in hard copy, as he prefers.”
Her path to the White House began with a cancer diagnosis and a LinkedIn post. Harp graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University, a Christian liberal arts college in San Diego, in 2012, and earned an MBA from Liberty University, the evangelical college founded by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 2015. Four years later, as Trump mounted a re-election bid, she published a LinkedIn post headlined “I’m Living Proof – the Party of Healthcare is Trump’s,” writing that on November 9, 2015 — “a year to the day Donald Trump would win the presidency” — a nurse “mixed up my IV with the deadly substance of sterile water leaving me housebound and searching for care.”
Instead of studying her symptoms, she wrote, “my Democrat-controlled state and country offered me opioids, barbiturates, medical marijuana, disability, Do-Not-Resuscitate orders, and yes, Death With Dignity.” Harp credited Trump’s signing of the 2018 Right to Try Act with giving her access to experimental treatments that proved successful. “My oncologist didn’t tell me I had other options,” she said. “Donald Trump did … Now my numbers are stabilizing and so is my pain.”
The post drew an invitation from Fox News to appear on air. Trump responded on social media: “Natalie Harp, fighting Stage 2 Cancer and doing really well, was a GREAT guest on @foxandfriends. Right To Try is producing some truly spectacular results. Proud of Natalie!” A month after her father’s death, Harp addressed the 2020 Republican national convention, introducing herself as “a formerly forgotten American from California” and comparing Trump to George Bailey, the everyman hero of It’s a Wonderful Life. “George Bailey’s father was right… All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away. Mr President, that makes you the richest man in the world,” she said. “I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for you.”
The Washington Post later cast doubt on that claim, noting that experts point out that “Harp’s description of the treatment she received and her timeline for receiving it make it unlikely Trump had any effect on her case.” Harp and her mother had by then left California for an 18th-floor apartment in West Palm Beach, Florida, three miles from Mar-a-Lago. In 2020 she joined One America News Network, where as a presenter she amplified Trump’s “big lie” that the presidential election had been stolen by Joe Biden, according to The Guardian. She left OANN in 2022 and began working for Trump as he sought a return to the White House.
Now that Trump is back in the Oval Office, Harp is frequently at his side. She reportedly shows him proposed Truth Social posts — often containing recycled content — then logs into his account to publish them. The posts have included a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes and an AI-generated image portraying Trump as Jesus Christ, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In Regime Change, a book published this year by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Harp’s loyalty is described as extending to writing Trump “adoring letters,” including one that read “You are all that matters to me.” In another she wrote: “I want to bring you joy, to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’” In another, she said, “I don’t ever want to let you down” and described Trump as her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.” Haberman and Swan also described a typical scene: “Harp was generally on a chair off to the side, her laptop open, head cocked, listening but never contributing unless ordered to by Trump. She fulfilled, in a flash, any request, whether a ‘Trump 2028’ that needed to be fetched from the merchandise room, a quick Google search, or producing the latest story from rightwing websites like Breitbart or Gateway Pundit.”
Last month, when Trump was forced to secretly swap planes in Turkey because of an alleged Iranian assassination threat, Harp was one of the few people to join him on a military plane while other staff and journalists remained on a decoy Air Force One. An acquaintance of Harp, who did not wish to be named, said Tuesday: “Nobody questioned [deputy chief of staff] Dan Scavino being on the military plane but frankly Natalie is a lot more capable than Dan Scavino in a lot of areas.”
Harp’s estranged brother, Preston Harp, who lives in Managua, Nicaragua, told the Daily Beast last month: “I think that she does see Trump as a kind of father figure because he embodies the doctrine of American exceptionalism.” Kurt Bardella, a political commentator and former congressional aide, said the White House’s response would only encourage further questions. “There’s something in life called a proportional response and what we saw from the White House was a massive response, which only further encourages questions and intrigue,” he said.
MSI previously reported that the White House rapid-response account attacked CNN reporter Kristen Holmes over her question about Ossoff’s remarks, the confrontation that has become part of the widening scrutiny of Harp’s role. White House rapid-response account attacks CNN reporter over Trump question