As that relationship took hold, the California family bubble she\u2019d been raised in was bursting behind the scenes, culminating with her father\u2019s suicide in July 2020. A month later, Harp emerged on the national stage, introducing herself as a \u201cformerly forgotten American from California\u201d at the Republican National Convention, where she declared her devotion to Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be alive if it wasn\u2019t for you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Natalie Harp speaks after being called onstage by President Trump during the Faith & Freedom Coalition 2019 Road To Majority Policy Conference in Washington on June 26, 2019.<\/p>\n
(Mark Wilson \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Now, she spends her days working as a special assistant to Trump, a man she has described, in highly personal letters, as her \u201cguardian and protector.\u201d In those letters, published by the Daily Beast<\/a>, she has thanked the president for \u201calways being there\u201d for her and alluded to a \u201cpromise\u201d Trump made to her after she lost her dad.<\/p>\n Harp\u2019s taxpayer-funded job, with its unmatched access to the president, mostly happens away from the public eye. She has been called the \u201chuman printer\u201d<\/a> because she follows Trump with a portable printer to provide Trump with hard copies of flattering news coverage or information the computer-averse president requires. <\/p>\n She also stays up late drafting social media posts with the president<\/a>, the New York Times reported. Several of Trump\u2019s Truth Social posts have generated controversy in recent months, including an AI-generated image showing him as Jesus in a white robe laying his hands on a sick man.<\/p>\n Those who know her describe her as detail-oriented and a \u201cdevoted staffer to the cause\u201d whose tight-knit circle includes those closest to Trump, such as Susie Wiles, Trump\u2019s chief of staff, and Karoline Leavitt, the White House\u2019s former press secretary.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like many of the administration officials, you become friends with your co-workers,\u201d Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who talks to Harp on a weekly basis, said in an interview.<\/p>\n Harp is \u201calmost always\u201d with Wiles, Luna said. The congresswoman added that her relationship with the president is \u201c100% professional,\u201d and that any suggestion otherwise is an attempt to smear her. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s been nothing but professional and an absolute killer when it comes to getting her job done,\u201d Luna said. \u201cI would kill to have someone like her on my team.\u201d<\/p>\n To her brother, Harp\u2019s integration in Trump\u2019s inner circle is in line with her upbringing. <\/p>\n \u201cMy mom raised us as super conservative, and he\u2019s everything that she taught us to respect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The White House declined to comment.<\/p>\n A California native in Trump world<\/p>\n As a kid in the San Diego neighborhood of Carmel Valley, Harp played with old-fashioned dolls and spent a lot of time reading, her brother said. For school, their mother used a curriculum from Bob Jones University Press, whose material focused on \u201cbiblical worldview shaping,\u201d according to its website.<\/p>\n The home in which Natalie Harp, an aide to President Trump, grew up in the Carmel Valley neighborhood of San Diego. <\/p>\n (Sandy Huffaker \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n \u201cWe start with God\u2019s truth as the standard,\u201d the website states. \u201cScripture serves as the blueprint for how we put together our textbooks so that every lesson begins with truth.\u201d <\/p>\n Growing up, Harp spent most of her time with adults, especially her mother, and would rarely socialize with her peers, her brother recalled. Even at church, she would opt to sit with the adults instead of spending time with the youth group.<\/p>\n \u201cThere would be like skateboarding demos, there would be cool stuff going on, but my sister was just with all the grown-ups, and she preferred it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Harp and her brother were close as young children but drifted apart as they got older. Preston Harp found an outlet skateboarding and surfing with friends, and Harp opted to stay close to home, he said.<\/p>\n At some point, their mother began policing their discussions, particularly as he started espousing more progressive beliefs, her brother recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t really allowed to be in her life,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we ever talked on the phone my mom was listening to everything we\u2019d say, and they were talking on the phone together with me on speakerphone.\u201d<\/p>\n Harp declined to comment for this story through a request sent to the White House. Her mother did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.<\/p>\n An aerial view of Natalie Harp\u2019s family\u2019s home in the private gated community of Woodbridge Cove, in Irvine. <\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n In her mid-20s, Harp moved with her parents to Irvine to be closer to their father\u2019s work at Biola University, a private Christian institution in La Mirada, southeast of Los Angeles. He worked as a professor at the school of business and later served as the executive director of the Office of Innovation, according to the university.<\/a><\/p>\n The family lived in a home adjacent to a man-made lake in Irvine\u2019s Woodbridge neighborhood, a master-planned community known for its peaceful, family-friendly atmosphere.<\/p>\n Both Irvine and Carmel Valley are silos from the problems of the outside world, places where everything might seem perfect, even when it isn\u2019t, her brother said.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom likes living in bubbles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Within a few years of the family\u2019s move, in July 2020, Harp\u2019s father, 61, died by suicide at their home. When Preston Harp arrived at the house, he said his mother wanted him to go along with the story that their father had died in his sleep. Preston refused, he said, not wanting to downplay his dad\u2019s pain to keep up appearances. It was the start of a massive rift in the family.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the last time I ever talked to my sister,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Entering the national stage<\/p>\n Harp has shared little about her upbringing publicly. However, she has spoken at length about medical issues she experienced starting in her mid-20s. <\/p>\n In 2020, she said during remarks at the Republican National Convention that five years earlier she was \u201cthe victim of a notoriously deadly medical error.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI survived, but only to be diagnosed with a rare and terminal bone cancer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She said she was diagnosed with Stage 2 bone cancer. It was that experience that sparked her interest in entering the political arena.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted to get better,\u201d she said on the program. \u201cI started tuning in for the first time into politics because I had never had a representative before. All my representatives were Democrats, so I thought, why should I care about politics?\u201d<\/p>\n Two rounds of chemotherapy did not help and she was rejected from clinical trials, she said. But in 2018 Trump signed the Right to Try Act, which allows terminally ill patients to access certain experimental drugs and immunotherapy treatments that have not received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not dying from cancer anymore thanks to President Trump, I am living with cancer,\u201d Harp said on the program. <\/p>\n The White House did not respond to a request seeking comment on the treatment she received.<\/p>\n Natalie Harp follows former President Trump as he boards his airplane after speaking at an event in Manchester, N.H., on April 27, 2023.<\/p>\n (Jabin Botsford \/ The Washington Post via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788086169_195_.jpeg\")
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