Natalie Harp has been in the news so much that I assumed she must have committed a crime, done something unethical or botched her job as one of President Donald Trump's aides so badly that he fired her.
I'm as disappointed as you are to learn none of the above is true (at least not yet).
Nevertheless, Harp has dominated news coverage. The headlines could appear on Page Six: The Daily Beast says Harp "sparks fresh mystery," and a body language expert dissected Harp's for HuffPost. Mother Jones spun a conspiracy theory about Trump, Harp and Russia you have to read to (dis)believe. Forbes wanted to know who was this aide "spotted regularly with the president." (Breaking: Presidential aides do tend to shadow their boss.) The New York Times dug deep,
leading with Harp's tender sign-off in a letter to the president, “With All My Heart, Natalie.”
Everyone is doing it. So I figured, why not join in?
Why is everyone harping on Natalie Harp?
Harp has been Trump's aide since 2022, but only recently made headlines after the news media learned that when the president secretly switched planes via an airport catering truck while exiting Turkey in July, he took Harp and a few others with him, leaving journalists and some staff on Air Force One.
It made Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, mad enough to quip bout Trump, “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."
Harp provides the president with a flow of news. She writes some of his social media posts, too, and has been dubbed "the human printer,” because she follows Trump around with a printer so he can read articles in hard copy.
"She rarely speaks on camera and yet she is never not there, ever-present with a wide smile and her eyes fixed on the president," The Times profile said. Yes, that’s typically what presidential aides do.
Harp also wrote Trump a letter that gushed with apologies and praise, well beyond the norm for a professional relationship. That part is weird, yes, but zealous workaholism and admiration are not unusual in politics, particularly when the boss is the leader of the free world.
Add to the fact that Harp credits Trump with saving her life – she had cancer and Trump signed a 2018 law allowing experimental treatments that helped her − and that she reportedly wrote similar letters to former President George W. Bush, and I'd chalk it up to being odd, but not newsworthy.
Had the news media been this dogged in covering then-President Joe Biden, or his similarly loyal aides, they might have discovered that he was in serious mental and physical decline, and that his inner circle hid it, long before a tell-all book was released about it. At minimum, more attention might have been paid to suspicious activities like Biden granting preemptive pardons to family members, Dr. Anthony Fauci and others close to him. That reeks of conspiracy, if not outright wrongdoing.
I get it. In this economy, the press has to do its job, it has to cover something. But aren't there wars to cover? Crimes happening? Budgets to pass? Why not be honest and admit that the Harp story is just a juicy, "Gossip Girl"-take on a highly narcissistic man and another blonde staffer who adores him?
I'm not saying it couldn't be morally fraught, stupid or an unforced error on Trump's part, but if you think Trump is the only president whose aides would crawl over broken glass for him, I've got a history book to sell you. It's a tale as old as time: Proximity to power is a heck of a drug.
The media can't stop hating on President Trump
The print and digital media industry is struggling. Traditional means of generating revenue through ads and page views have declined, especially in the past few years, and particularly as artificial intelligence chips away at how and what people read. Even in a slow news cycle, Trump headlines are guaranteed to sell.
But I think there might be an even deeper reason why the story du jour is swirling about Harp. Much of the mainstream media is full of implicit or explicit liberal bias. They still can't believe that Trump won the 2024 election and that attractive, accomplished women − and men − support him with fervor.
To the media, Harp's devotion, her mere existence, is an anomaly. They have treated former and current female staffers such as departing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, former adviser Hope Hicks and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with swirling rumors, clickbait headlines and obvious disdain.
Harp's letter confirms their deepest suspicions about Trump and his most ardent supporters: Only a man obsessed with himself would want staff equally obsessed with him. That's the only reason anyone would work for him. Surely it could not be ideological alignment, personal or professional gratitude, or dedication to country or to some greater good.
I don't know which it is, but it won't stop the media from speculating until the next round of Trump gossip comes along.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harp is a loyal Trump aide, not a scandal. Get over it. | Opinion
