Why Did Trump Lose It Over Natalie Harp—and Who Is She, Anyway? Unfortunately, I’ve Learned Too Much.

Fame It’s not an affair. It’s somehow worse. By Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Heather Schwedel? Aug 18, 20265:50 PM Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. On Sunday, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff said something that seems to have truly pissed off Trumpworld: He gave a speech in which he dared to mention a woman in the Trump orbit named Natalie—just Natalie, no last name given. Speaking at a campaign event—he is up for reelection in November—Ossoff said the following about Trump to a crowd: “While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks.” He went on: “He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” Who is this Natalie that Trump wants to—pause for a full-body shudder—travel with? It’s not anything so obvious as an affair, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s somehow worse. Natalie is Natalie Harp, but she’s better known as Trump’s so-called “human printer.” As an executive assistant in the White House, she follows him around with a wireless printer, supplying him with a steady flow of articles and memes about him for him to take in. If you’re wondering why such a position is necessary in the age of the smartphone and tablet, recall that our president, ever the boomer, prefers things in hard copy. (Who says he’s not creating jobs?) Harp also sometimes posts for Trump on social media; people on his team have in fact blamed her for some of his very worst, most racist posts. She makes a salary of $150,000 doing this, by the way. Harp has been part of Trump’s staff, and been reported on in media outlets like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, for a while now. After a stint as an anchor at One America News Network, she joined Trump’s team in 2022, when she first earned the “human printer” nickname. As that epithet might imply, she is not exactly beloved among the rest of Trump’s staff. It has been reported that those employees have tried and failed numerous times to push her out, worrying that she is a danger to herself and the president. The deal seems to be that she’s so scarily devoted to Trump that she worries her colleagues, which is saying something. But scary levels of devotion, it perhaps unsurprisingly turns out, are a register that really works for our president, and all this has paradoxically ensured her continued employment in the White House. Maybe all it takes to achieve job security in this admin is to do what Harp did and write creepy letters to Trump in which you refer to him as your “Guardian and Protector in this Life.” If all this is public knowledge and has been for some time, one wonders why members of Trumpworld were so rattled by Ossoff’s mention of Natalie. And they were rattled: White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote a post in response that began, “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics.” Another White House staffer called Ossoff a “cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama.” Trump also snapped at a reporter who asked about the remarks. Part of it may be that Ossoff is starting to look like a contender for the presidential race in 2028. Another part may be that there’s a difference between newspaper and magazine stories about Trump’s “human printer” and a clip that can travel around social media when a senator mentions Natalie by name. Team Trump may figure that nobody reads anymore, but they do watch videos, and the natural response to this one is to ask: Who’s Natalie? Donald Trump White House 2026 Midterms