Natalie’s Magnificent Obsession

I’ve spent my career watching officials manoeuvre and scheme, often in absurd ways, to get closer to presidents. But I’d never seen anything like the photo of Natalie Harp dashing after President Donald Trump’s golf cart in Scotland three years ago. I’d also never heard of a staffer jumping into the trunk of an SUV, as Harp did, when she was denied a seat in the motorcade.

The hit horror movie Obsession , about a man who wishes for more adoration from a young woman, who falls under his spell and maniacally provides it, is playing out on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Like others, I winced when I first heard Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat, refer to how Trump liked to “travel with Natalie.” Was he gratuitously turning a salacious spotlight onto a White House aide?

But as it turns out, with three little words, Ossoff pulled a string and unravelled something really dark and deranged at the innermost circle of Trump’s White House.

The president’s proclivity for surrounding himself with sycophants — and attractive young blondes — is well known.

But this relationship is pathological, and a source of great irritation among other courtiers. It is Trump distilled to his essence: cult leader and his most rabid follower, narcissist and his most flattering mirror.

The daughter of a devoutly Christian real estate broker who died by suicide during the pandemic, Harp idolises Trump with a rare fervour. As one of his social media facilitators, she is with him most of the day and often evenings, and she never takes a day off. The New York Times ′ Maggie Haberman calls Harp the “binky” (emotional support toy) of the man-child president.

Harp is nicknamed — and refers to herself as — “the human printer” because she follows Trump around with a portable printer to provide him with paper copies of any positive stories or tweets. (When The Mirror published the picture on Friday of Harp dashing after the golf cart at Turnberry in Scotland, the story’s author dubbed Harp “the human sprinter.“) Haberman said foreign leaders also try to use Harp as a conduit to reach Trump.

As Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported in their blockbuster, Regime Change , Trump told his staff that Harp was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids did. “She’ll never leave me,” he would tell other staffers.

Harp first came to his attention in 2019 when she spoke on Fox News about how Trump had helped save her life with the Right to Try Act, which she said had allowed her to get experimental treatment for bone cancer.

Before she began to work on Trump’s restoration in 2022, Harp was an anchor at the far-right OAN and spread the gospel that the election was stolen. This winter, she was the one who posted the sickening video depicting Trump as the king of the jungle and the Obamas as apes.

The Harp saga reflects a truly weird fact about Trump. The 80-year-old president got elected, governs, provokes and seeks revenge using social media, and he was surrounded by bootlicking tech titans at his inaugural. But he still needs someone young and online to sit beside him and type his posts.