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Harp was there as the president turned an Oval Office strategy session into something of a personal highlight reel.
Donald Trump’s ever-present aide Natalie Harp played a key role in helping the president turn taxpayer money into a vehicle for glorifying himself, a new report reveals.
At a strategy meeting in the Oval Office, Trump instructed Harp to pull up footage of the kinds of flattering images of himself he wanted to see in the ads, The New York Times reported . Harp quickly obliged, showcasing clips of Trump before massive crowds and beneath fighter jets, among other footage.
The 13 partisan ads praise Trump, 80, for his military prowess in Iran and Venezuela, extoll his much-criticized tariffs, and declare repeatedly in one ad that “God made Trump” because he needed the president’s help. Trump is using $20 million of taxpayer-provided Homeland Security funds to pay for the ads, even though he recently boasted that he has access to “ close to $1 billion ” in his political super PAC, MAGA Inc. Instead, Trump directed Office of Management and Budget head Russell Vought to find government money. The video ads are all labeled “public service announcements. ” Trump unveiled his unprecedented ad blitz to exalt himself in a meeting with Republican strategists in the Oval Office in early August, the New York Times reported. Trump was supposed to be discussing how best to use the fundraised super PAC money to help struggling Republican candidates in the midterm elections.
Instead, “he was much more interested in looking at videos of himself,” the Times reported, noting accounts from several unnamed sources on the scene. Trump said at the meeting that he planned to campaign for GOP candidates, but that his presidency needed to be promoted “front and center. ” Trump instructed Harp to show those assembled the “kind of images” of himself that he likes.
Harp, the so-called “human printer” who churns out positive news articles about her boss for him to read, has happily gone digital, and she quickly called up tapes on her tablet for all to see. The videos, created by the White House digital team, showed off Trump in “vast crowds,” and the president beneath fighter jets, among other images, the newspaper reported.
President Donald Trump flattered an even younger White House aide than Natalie Harp, potentially putting her in an uncomfortable position. Trump, 80, spoke Thursday at a rally in Durant, Oklahoma, where he invited 31-year-old communications adviser Margo Martin, an Oklahoma native, on stage. He then fixated on her looks. Martin “is known for a number of things,” the president said.
“I can’t mention one, because if I do, my political career will be over. ” He then mentioned it anyway: “You can never say that a woman is beautiful. If you say a woman is beautiful, that’s the end of your political career. But, I’ll say it anyway: She is a beautiful woman, inside and out.
” Trump, pointing out Martin’s parents, continued: “I see why she’s good-looking, actually. You know, I believe in the racehorse theory. Fast horses, right? Great mom and dad.
Thank you very much. Great job, Margo. ” On The Daily Beast Podcast , Joanna Coles and Hugh Dougherty dissected that moment and how it could play out behind the scenes in the White House.
“I actually feel for Natalie Harp watching that,” Coles said. Trump was clearly “showing off” Martin, Dougherty added.
“And of course, Trump travels with the same group of people all the time. So Natalie Harp was there as well,” he explained.
“He brought up, he hugged her, he talked about how beautiful she is. We know that that’s the language of Trump. ” “So in his view, this is a local girl done good. But if you’re Natalie Harp… there were these pictures earlier in the week of him apparently shouting at Natalie Harp.
And then, a younger woman, a woman who—we have to say—has regularly been mistaken for Melania, was brought up on stage. ” Martin and Harp have been in the White House since the first day of Trump’s second term. Martin, his communications adviser, and Harp, his executive assistant, each make $150,000 per year, and each received a $45,000 cash gift from Trump, apparently for the “holidays,” The Washington Post reported last month .
Harp, in letters published by the Daily Beast, has called Trump her “Guardian and Protector in this Life. ” Tuesday’s rally, Coles theorized, could be Trump’s attempt to instill a competition of sorts between the two women.
“It seems that he’s trying to pit them against each other, which is something we know he does with his Cabinet,” she said. “You know, it’s JD Vance versus Marco Rubio versus Pete Hegseth. He’s doing it here with Natalie Harp and Margo Martin. ” When reached for comment, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung replied: “Joanna shouldn’t be so jealous, it’s not a good look for her.
” New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast are released every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday on YouTube , and on other podcast platforms the next morning. Follow our new feed on your favorite podcast platform at beast.pub/dailybeastpod and subscribe on YouTube to watch full episodes. One showed UFC President Dana White calling Trump “the most resilient person that I’ve ever met.
” A short time later, the nonprofit Securing American Greatness—at a cost of some $60,000—aired a spot featuring the White quote, according to AdImpact. The ad ran largely in Washington during the first days of September, where the president could see it. Trump’s self-promotional propaganda blitz has since gone nationwide and on major TV networks, including CBS, MS NOW, Fox News, ABC, and NBC.
The first foreboding ad was a dark vision of a serious Trump amid lightning-fast images over the repeated message “America will never be a communist country” beneath a song chillingly intoning over and over: “Love me. ” Democrats and Republicans have attacked the publicly funded partisan ads. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on X that the ads “ may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.
” The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment. An unsigned press office statement to the Times said that the “public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders and abroad. ” Washingtonian magazine is facing backlash for highlighting President Donald Trump’s close personal aide, Natalie Harp, as one of D.C. ’s most powerful women.
The publication has been flooded with disgusted comments that Harp was not only named among the likes of Rep. Nancy Pelosi and AARP CEO Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, but was one of the four women prominently featured with an exclusive interview to boot.
“To go from someone as incredible as Myechia Minter-Jordan to Natalie Harp is wild stuff,” a top comment read on Instagram . “You were doing so great until the last slide. ” Another read: “Lawyer, CEO, Ivy League, and someone whose full-time job is printing papers… 🤔” The post featured five slides, including a smiling Harp, whose nickname is the “˙˙˙Human Printer” because she prints news articles for Trump to read, featured on the final slide.
“I unliked when I saw the last slide WTF!!!! ” a comment read. A second with hundreds of likes said, “Last slide 👎🏾” Washingtonian published the names of 300 women in Washington. Harp, however, was the face of its “National Politics” subsection, beating out First Lady Melania Trump, Second Lady Usha Vance, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Washingtonian seemed to know its post—and list—would ruffle feathers.
“We realize some of the names are lightning rods—highly partisan women in highly partisan times,” the magazine wrote. “There are MAGA-aligned women as well as those who fight the Trump agenda every day. We don’t mean to lift up either side or pass judgment on anyone’s accomplishments. ” It continued, “We’re simply shining a light on the women wielding power—in some cases, boldly and loudly; in other cases, quietly and with little notice—in the nation’s capital today.
” That disclaimer, buried in the final paragraph of its Instagram post that highlighted Harp, did little to slow critical comments.
“Don’t confuse the Accomplished with the Accomplice,” read one comment. Another wrote, “The last slide is a wild choice. ” A third said, “Natalie Harp doing the social media posts says everything. She’s influential, yes.
But at what cost to our democracy and truth?!?! She doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as these other icons. 🙌” Harp, 35, was interviewed by Washingtonian by email. Her written responses were published last week, marking the first time she has spoken to the press since becoming a polarizing figure in MAGA 2.0.
Her writing style—complete with bizarre capitalizations—was indistinguishable from how her boss posts on Truth Social every day. Asked what the hardest part of her job is, Harp answered that it is working in a city that “does not work at the speed of ‘TRUMP!
’” She continued, “We have only four years to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and that sense of urgency is absent from too many, while the Radical Left tries to stop, or slow down, the momentum the President is building for the Golden Age of America.
“Ultimately, however, the President continues to do as much as possible, as quickly as possible, delivering Historic Results for our Country, and the World. ”
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