How Natalie Harp Just Became America’s Most Dangerous Woman
Natalie Harp climbed gingerly onto the helicopter with Stephen Miller, Susie Wiles, and Margo Martin on Monday afternoon.
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They joined President Donald Trump, who was already inside, and the five flew to Joint Base Andrews, where they boarded Air Force One for the short flight to New York and the United Nations General Assembly.
Later that afternoon, they were to meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion, then talk with French President Emmanuel Macron. High diplomacy requiring expert advice and sage guidance.
It was perhaps no mistake that Wiles, 69, and Miller, 41, were shepherding Harp. Three days earlier, she had shown just how much damage she could do when left alone with the president.
Wiles’s political career dates all the way back to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, and whatever you think of Miller, he worked for Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions before joining Trump’s first-term team. They have political resumes.
But what of 35-year-old Harp, arguably the most influential of the president’s White House coterie?
She worked for a far-right TV news channel for two years, from 2020 to 2022.
She is no Henry Kissinger.
Even Hope Hicks had a job as White House Communications Director during the president’s first term. Kellyanne Conway was a successful pollster and political consultant before becoming Trump’s campaign manager. She clerked for a superior court judge.
Harp was homeschooled in California and graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University. There is nothing wrong with that; indeed, it is to be lauded.
But should Natalie Harp be influencing Trump on how to run the country?
According to The Wall Street Journal, it was Harp who was behind Trump’s decision to throw the First Amendment out the window and ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.
She apparently showed the president clips of MS NOW anchors criticizing the administration on Friday, and hours later he was posting on Truth Social that the outlets were no longer welcome at the People’s House.
It is not surprising that Wiles was away in Florida at the time. Another voice that Trump listens to, Karoline Leavitt, is gone, burnt out by Trump’s incessant demands.
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The saying in the West Wing is that the president is persuaded by the last voice he hears.
These days, that voice is almost always Harp’s.
She is obsessed with Trump, so much so that she claims she owes her life to his decision to change the laws enabling her to receive life-saving cancer medication. She is available 24/7 to attend to his whims and write his irate, full-caps Truth Social posts through the night.
“You are all that matters to me,” Harp wrote to Trump in letters that were revealed in full by the Daily Beast, “I don’t want to ever let you down.”
She was once a figure of fun, running after Trump with a printer to keep him apprised of puff pieces chronicling his brilliance. The “Human Printer” remained resolutely in the background.
Now she is inseparable from Trump. In the absence of a first lady, she is the first assistant. Walking up the steps to Air Force One on Monday, in a black dress, her blonde hair tied in a businesslike bun, she was thoroughly at home at the center of Trump’s cyclone.
Her importance to Trump was emphasized by the fact that she was one of the few people with him when he sneaked away from Air Force One in a catering truck to escape a possible Iranian terror attack in Turkey. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was left behind with the White House media pool to act as decoys.
A gatekeeper’s power is not just in who they allow in, but in who they keep out.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln famously encouraged contrasting views and opinions to their own in order to reach decisions they deemed just. With Harp guarding the gate, there will be no room for doubters.
The trouble is that Trump’s biggest enemy is himself. He is your old grandfather sitting in the armchair pontificating and brooking no argument. At 80, he genuinely thinks he can do what he wants. Even ban fishing.
The suck-up Cabinet he has assembled is worrying enough. But the whisper in Trump’s ear forever telling him he is right may be the most dangerous of all.
The President of the United States holds the safety of the world at his fingertips. The nuclear button is never very far away.
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What if the last voice in his ear tells him to press it?
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