Natalie Harp has been working with Donald Trump since 2022, but only in recent days has the American and world media paid close attention to her. RTVI figured out how this happened, why the biography of the 35-year-old assistant to the US President is interesting, and to whom her closeness to Trump seems excessive.
Is “Printer Man” more important than Rubio?
Since 2025, Harp has formally held the position of executive assistant to the President of the United States and is actually his personal secretary. Informally, she was called the “human printer”, as well as the “eyes and ears” of the head of the White House. She received her first nickname because of the small portable device she carries with her to print positive media articles for the President as soon as they come out.
The second characteristic is essentially related to the same tasks – as Senator John Barrasso noted in an interview with Fox News in 2024, Trump, through Harp, receives fresh information and communicates with other politicians.
“I text her if I need the president. If he doesn’t answer the phone, I know that I need to contact her, and he will respond immediately,” noted the Wyoming Republican.
Barrasso's late colleague Lindsey Graham admitted to the same channel that Harp, on Trump's team, takes on tasks from “organizing golf games to resolving the most sensitive international issues.”
Harp helps Trump compose social media post for meeting with European leaders in 2025
Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok
One such international issue in August 2026 sparked sudden media interest in Harp. The assistant was mentioned by CBS News in an article about the details of Trump’s scandalous road from the NATO summit in Turkey in July.
It was initially reported that the US President flew from Ankara on an old state plane, rather than on a new one donated by Qatar, due to the threat from Iran. In August, sources told reporters that Trump and a number of his closest associates were in fact secretly transferred to another, previously unknown plane, after being transported through the airport in a food truck.
According to CBS News, the president took only three of his closest aides with him on the secret flight – Walt Nauta, Dan Scavino and Harp, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent flew on the official presidential plane despite concerns about its safety.
Melania doesn't like Harp?
In recent days, Senator Jon Ossoff has added to the virality of Harp's persona. In his campaign before the November congressional elections, the Russian-born Democrat said that all Trump wants to do instead of being president is “build a ballroom and travel with Natalie.”
The White House came to the defense of Trump's assistant. Communications director Stephen Chung at X (formerly Twitter) insultingly misstated Ossoff's last name, called him a “cuckold,” and shamed him for mentioning a cancer survivor at a political rally.
By the way, it was oncology that initially brought Harp and Trump together. In 2019, she spoke on Fox News as an activist about how the experimental treatments law signed by Trump helped her overcome bone cancer. She soon received an invitation to speak at the 2020 Republican National Convention and then landed a job at the conservative One America News Network. In 2022, she moved to work full-time as Trump's secretary and, after his election victory, received a position in the White House.
Harp and Trump at an event in 2019
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Despite her media past, Harp has been far from publicity lately, although in many photographs she can be seen next to the president. Also, along with Scavino, she is considered responsible for helping Trump run social networks.
“She is like a baby’s pacifier, a favorite blanket, so to speak,” noted New York Times (NYT) journalist Maggie Haberman amid interest in Harp.
As an unnamed White House official added to CNN, Trump values Harp's “100 percent” loyalty and attention. According to the channel, in 2023, Harp agreed to ride in the trunk of Trump's car to a court hearing in one of the cases in New York, as she did not have enough space in the cabin.
“She doesn’t think, doesn’t ask questions,” the CNN source emphasized.
The NYT also calls the smiling blonde a “geyser of positivity,” however, according to rumors, not everyone around Trump likes Harp. Biographer Michael Wolf, whom the president criticized, claims that US First Lady Melania Trump avoids events in which her husband's assistant participates. The author also attributed Harp's continued presence to the First Lady's reluctance to move into the White House full-time during his second term.
“Except on ceremonial occasions and strictly official status, she [Мелания] refused the role of wife. There’s basically no room for it,” Wolf noted on Substack.
Melania Trump has not publicly commented on the relationship of her 80-year-old husband with her 35-year-old assistant, and in general the media emphasize that there is no talk of their romance. However, as Semafor notes, citing sources, neither Trump nor his wife likes attention to topics related to their personal lives.
The publication believes that this was partly due to the aggressive response to the rhetoric of Ossoff, who, as RTVI previously wrote, is also tipped for presidential ambitions. Trump himself, in response to a request from journalists to comment on Ossoff’s statements, called him “a Pee-wee Herman double,” a comedy character known for eccentric behavior.
