In mid-November 2024, a week after the presidential elections, a video went viral on the internet. It was a short clip from "The Art of Resurgence: The Return of Donald Trump," a production by Tucker Carlson Network that showed behind the scenes of Trump's campaign, including his reactions and interactions with his team and family. But what caught the world's attention was not his outbursts reacting to a speech by Kamala Harris, but seeing the future president posting his messages on Truth Social, his own social network. Or rather, how someone was writing and posting those messages on his behalf.
The video shows Trump in a small room, sitting with ten members of his team, including today's White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, or the most radical and powerful advisor, Stephen Miller. But alongside them is a much less known face: a 34-year-old young assistant, blonde, named Natalie Harp, who has one of the most delicate and influential jobs on the planet: tweeting on behalf of the president.
Trump is famous for using social media like no politician before. He engages in all debates, makes announcements, declares or ends wars, promotes his products, and supports or undermines the careers of congressional or senatorial aspirants. But above all, he launches diatribes with a unique and vitriolic style. These are sometimes very long texts, written in a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, with his favorite nicknames and insults, with his signature and his favorite phrases. Millions of people associate that structure with the president and only him. And yet, Harp's figure, divisive and harmful according to other collaborators of the Republican leader, is essential in that task. He speaks, and Harp, sitting next to him with an open computer, transforms Trump's ideas into text, imitating his style, and after showing them to him and getting approval, she hits publish.
"Breaking news doesn't care where you are. That's how our mobile office started. Many times, the president wants to put his ideas in writing, so I take dictation, print it, and then he works on it until he has the perfect words for a viral Truth Social post," explained Harp, dubbed by some of her critics as the "human printer", to Fox News shortly after that video.
In recent months, but especially in recent days, Trump seems to have completely lost control. At night, sometimes even well into the early morning, he posts or reposts all kinds of messages, without filter or limits, including racist content from anonymous accounts or encouraging retaliation or violence. He did it when he shared an image of the Obama couple depicted as chimpanzees. Or more recently, when he shared an image comparing himself to Jesus Christ.
Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has posted nearly 9,000 messages on his social network, an average of almost 19 per day, for an audience of, theoretically, nearly 12 million people. This week, before heading to China, he posted or reposted 55 posts in a single night, some delusional, accusing Obama of stealing $120 million and orchestrating a coup. He denounced how the 2020 election was stolen from him, demanded the arrest of the prosecutor who investigated him, called many Democrats traitors, called for Hillary Clinton to be sent to Haiti, or gave visibility to messages urging to fire his acting attorney general for not prosecuting the president's political enemies.
NATALIE HARP, LOYAL TO DONALD TRUMP SINCE 2020
Harp, whose official position is that of Trump's executive assistant, is the key cog in that Twitter frenzy. She hands the president piles of printed drafts of social media posts for his approval. "According to sources close to the matter, she often recycles content from other accounts that Harp or her advisors believe Trump would like. Subsequently, Harp accesses the president's account —sometimes outside of working hours— and posts batches of messages approved by the president. Trump personally approves all content posted on his account, and while Harp usually posts content on behalf of Trump, the president posts some messages himself, according to White House officials," explained The Wall Street Journal this week.
A similar report was published by The Washington Post in 2023 when Trump was just a former president with aspirations to return. "According to his advisors, she often hands him press articles and social media posts that he would not otherwise see —sometimes promoting false accusations of electoral fraud— and takes dictations to post on Truth Social, which are sometimes published without the review of his top collaborators."
Harp, a former presenter and journalist for conservative networks, provokes jealousy among some White House officials because she usually does not share drafts of her posts with the chief of staff's office, communication advisors, or national security officials, arguing, according to the press, that she works for the president and only follows his orders. And he has been protecting her, shielding her, and thwarting any attempts to get rid of her for years. Trump has never forgiven those who distanced themselves when he fell from grace after the Capitol riot, nor has he forgotten those who stayed, unwavering like Harp, who was with him in trials, rallies, or every time they tried to assassinate him.
Harp met her boss in 2020 and has been in his inner circle since 2022. Journalistic chronicles from those years emphasized how "she is always with him." Proximity to the president is an immensely valuable asset. "Other collaborators consider her a problematic figure among his advisors due to her unconditional devotion to her boss and lack of judgment. She follows Trump everywhere, even on the golf course, in a cart equipped with a laptop and sometimes a printer," wrote The Washington Post back then.
A biographer of the president says that Harp, who has been justifying her devotion for years with a strange, partially invented story about how a decision by Trump saved her life by facilitating medical treatment, acts as a "guardian." During the campaign, she was in charge of maintaining and managing the access of MAGA influencers like Laura Loomer, one of the biggest conspiracy enthusiasts. But also of congressmen, senators, and governors. "She is like an additional pair of eyes and ears for President Trump," Senator John Barrasso told Fox News. "I send her a message if I need to communicate with the president," Barrasso explained. "If she doesn't answer the phone, I know I should contact Natalie, and he gets the message." "If you want to get something to President Trump, she is the right person," influential Senator Lindsey Graham also pointed out.