Why everyone is talking about Trump's aide Natalie Harp

John Mazerolle · CBC News

· Posted: Aug 19, 2026 2:16 PM EDT | Last Updated: 14 minutes ago

When U.S. President Donald Trump used a catering truck to secretly move from Air Force One during a potential security threat in Turkey early last month, a number of people remained on the plane.

They included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the 13-person press pool.

Among those who made the move with Trump: deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta and the woman who is suddenly in the middle of a U.S. media firestorm: executive assistant Natalie Harp.

Who is Natalie Harp?

The 35-year-old is special assistant and executive assistant to the president. She can often be seen by his side both in the Oval Office and when he travels. She went to court with him when he was facing trials and was at both 2024 assassination attempts.

Fox News said in a profile shortly after Trump won his second term that Harp has been alongside the president since 2022.

"I believe she is an extra set of eyes and ears for President Trump," Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, told Fox News then. "Every time I have been with him, she has been close at hand." He added: "If he doesn't pick up the phone, I know to go to Natalie, and he gets the message."

Harp has set up a mobile office that travels with Trump, including a mobile printer to get articles in front of him immediately when needed.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, left, and Harp speak with U.S. President Donald Trump at a golf course in Washington, D.C., on June 28. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)

She first became part of Trump's world in 2019, after the bone cancer survivor lauded the president for a 2018 law meant to give patients access to experimental treatments before approval.

Multiple Republicans have stressed her loyalty to the president, and she speaks of him in glowing terms.

In the Fox profile, she said: "He is on a totally different plane, at peace with God and unshakably focused. Nothing gets to him, because he puts his comfort second and his purpose first."

New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, in their book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, said Harp alarmed the U.S. Secret Service during the election campaign by leaving Trump adoring letters in his private quarters, including one that said, "You are all that matters to me."

Why is she in the news now?

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

The Georgia senator is running for re-election and has been floated as a presidential candidate, though he denies any interest in the campaign for 2028.

Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia speaks at a rally for U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Atlanta on Oct. 19, 2024. (Dustin Chambers/Reuters)

At a campaign event on Sunday, Ossoff said that Trump doesn't want to do the job.

"He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar," he said, referring in turn to White House renovations, Harp and Air Force One.

Trump's response

On Monday, a reporter in the Oval Office asked Trump about Ossoff's comments.

"You mean Pee-wee Herman?" Trump said. "Pee-wee Herman look-alike. No, I would much rather do other things. It's a — we're building a great facility here. We're fixing a White House that hasn't been taken care of."

White House communications director Steven Cheung used vulgar terms to describe Ossoff and said he was the biggest "loser" in politics. Conservative commentators accused Ossoff of sexism and, given Harp's cancer history, heartlessness.

Tiffany Trump's husband, Michael Boulos, left, Harp and Trump are shown through windows on Marine One as it lands on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 18, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Democrats and other people opposed to Trump have been giddy about Ossoff's comments, or at least willing to play along. "Ok I'll bite," Michigan state Senate majority whip Mallory McMorrow wrote on X. "Who's Natalie."

The Pod Save America podcast, which is hosted by former Obama speechwriters and aides, said it was mission accomplished for Ossoff because his comments went viral online and made news while winking at rumours there is more than a presidential-staffer relationship. (There is no evidence of any improper relationship.)

"I think there's a question of whether it might kick up media coverage of these allegations now in a way that is frustrating to the White House," said co-host Tommy Vietor.