Who is Natalie Harp? Trump’s ‘human printer’ aide in the spotlight - The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:10He said that the only things Trump cares about are stock trades, the ballroom and travelling on a private plane with Natalie. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. And the White House went straight into this mode in response to Ossoff and really attacking a female reporter who brought this up. Quiet, who are you with? I'm with CNN. Fake news. There is some speculation that Natalie Harp could now be put forward as the new White House press secretary. I mean, stranger things have happened in the Trump White House.

0:49From the Guardian's Today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Helen Mead.

0:56So I don't know about you, but this time last week, maybe even only on Monday this week, I had never heard of the name Natalie Hart. And now I can't avoid it. You work on the international desk at The Guardian, Paul Owen. Was her name new to you? I had heard of her, but she is not a household name or she wasn't until this week. Yeah. And so she's got two job titles. She is the special assistant to the president as well as the executive assistant to the president. But I think among the White House press corps, she has a nickname, which is Trump's human printer. And we're going to come on to talk about who exactly she is.

1:29But why are we talking about her this week? Well, this goes back to Trump's decision at the end of a NATO summit a couple of months ago to leave Air Force One secretly, travel in a catering truck, get into another plane, fool the press and anyone who was watching about where he was. this was supposedly to avoid an attack by Iran. It emerged a few days ago that along with him in the catering truck and then on the plane was this close aide, Natalie Harp. Now, not all of Trump's close aides were allowed on the plane. Some of them had to stay on the plane that was evidently under threat. But Natalie Harp was on this plane.

2:15A Democrat, Georgia Senator John Ossoff. He brought this up in a speech a few days ago. He was talking about the things that Trump is concentrating on and the things that he's not concentrating on. He said that the only things Trump cares about are stock trades, the ballroom, and traveling on a private plane gifted to him by Qatar with Natalie. This really sent her public profile into the stratosphere. Yeah. And tell us about her and how she entered Trump's orbit. Sure. She first sort of came onto the public scene at the 2020 Republican convention. She gave a speech about being a cancer survivor.

2:52She gave Trump a lot of credit for his policies for her recovery. She went on then to speak about it on Fox News, which Trump seemed to notice and commented on. And then she had a job on another pro-Trump TV network called One American News Network. Then by sort of 2022, she was working for his campaign as he prepared to run for president again. And where did this human printer nickname come from? Well, since she's been in the White House, her job seems to consist of printing things out for him. So he's a very old school person. He doesn't want to see things on a screen. So she'll bring him articles, tweets, messages from allies.

3:41Apparently, she brings in positive polling, although it must be from fairly dubious sources because there's not much good news in there. and she also supposedly drafts or types out his Truth Social posts, which as we know he sends day and night. And it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that Natalie Harp was responsible for two of Trump's most notorious posts on Truth Social, his social media network. That one where the Obamas were depicted as monkeys and then the other one, which none of us will ever forget of him, portrayed as Christ. So she clearly is quite an influential figure in this White House.

4:19Yeah, these became two of the most controversial tweets that he sent in this presidency. And the one about the Obamas was eventually taken down. And the one about him as Christ caused him a lot of trouble among his evangelical supporters. Yeah. And Natalie Harp likes to write letters to Trump, some of which have been leaked to the New York Times. And sick bags at the ready because I'm going to I'm going to read one of them out to you. So she refers to Trump as her guardian and protector in this life. She wrote to him, you are all that matters to me. I want to bring you joy, to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk work.

4:53And in another, she said, I don't want to ever let you down. I mean, I think Trump is the kind of person that is surrounded by yes people and people who are telling him how wonderful they are. And if they're an attractive young woman, that's even better. And she really seems to fit the bill for him. And I guess those letters combined with the speech that John Ossoff made have all contributed to the speculation that she and Trump are in love or having some sort of relationship. And there is absolutely no evidence of that. But I just wonder why, though, are we talking about two people who are kind of essentially fringe figures?

5:28That Democratic senator, I'd never heard of him before. As I said, I hadn't heard of Natalie Hart. Why has this captured the global media's attention? Is it just kind of common or garden misogyny, blonde woman with Trump, ergo, they must be having an affair? Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a bit of disingenuousness from Ossoff and people around him. He definitely was suggesting that they had an affair. And the reason that it delighted a lot of Democrats was because it was so cheeky and outrageous. And it kind of plays into a debate that's been going on in the Democratic Party throughout the Trump era.

6:03that goes back to Michelle Obama's comment, when they go low, we go high. There's always been a divide ever since. People who agree with that and people who think, no, the only way to tackle Trump is to go as low as he is. And this is evidently what Ossoff was doing with this speech. And there's been a lot of fake outrage on the right in response to it, because really, I mean, the hypocrisy is obvious. Trump has said hideous things about many of his opponents, men and women. You know, I'm thinking off the top of my head, saying to a reporter, be quiet, piggy. You know, it's just outrageous. And the White House went straight into this mode in response to Ossoff, calling him John Jackoff and really attacking a female reporter who brought this up.

6:55Trump told her to be quiet and then the White House put out a statement saying that her children would be ashamed of her disgusting question. And how do you think this story is going to go down with American voters? Is it going to shift the dial at all for Trump? Because he's got the midterms coming up. His polling is not looking great, as you've said. He's waging this unpopular war despite having vowed to go into this presidency, ending America's forever wars. Do you think this is consequential for him? I mean, I think there's the gossip element, which was the first part of the story and probably, you know, the main reason why this was one of the most read stories on the Guardian website this week.

7:35But the story also sort of escalated later this week when MS Now website published something saying that she had declined to put herself forward for a security clearance for a year. And that eventually Trump himself had to intervene and get her to put herself forward for the background check. And she did it and it passed. But it did mean that for a year, this person who is in the White House with him throughout the working day was not security cleared. And that kind of elevated the story to give it a bit of a bit of heft. All that said, I mean, I don't think this is going to move the needle in terms of Trump's popularity or the midterms.

8:21But midterms are looking very bad for Trump and the Republicans. You know, I think it's almost a certainty that the Democrats will win the House. Senate is much more difficult, but it's not out of the question. And given how vigorously Trump has defended Natalie Harp, do you think we're going to be seeing even more of her? I mean, there's a vacancy at the moment, isn't there, in the press room at the White House. Caroline Leavitt is leaving ostensibly to spend some more time with her baby. But there are other reports suggesting that she was pretty cheesed off not to be on that plane. She was on the one that apparently Iranian missiles were or were not trained on.

8:59Yes, there is. I mean, there is some speculation that Natalie Harp could now be put forward as the new White House press secretary. I mean stranger things have happened in the Trump White House I would say that um that would probably mean she would spend less time with Trump Trump would spend less time with her so perhaps neither of them would want that. Paul thank you very much. Thanks very much. And that's it for today my thanks again to Paul Owen and thank you to you for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus is taking a well-earned break next week and we're going to be replaying one of my all-time favourite Guardian podcast series, which is hosted by my friend and yours, Michael Safi, formerly of Today in Focus.

9:41It's called Black Box and it's all about AI, ahead of Black Box 2, the new season, which will be dropping into your feeds in September. The latest will be back on Monday evening. This episode was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The executive producer was Zoe Hitch and it was presented by me, Helen Pidd.

10:03This is The Guardian