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By this point, you’ve almost certainly heard the one about Donald Trump and “Natalie.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, set off a firestorm of speculation about White House aide Natalie Harp—and the exact nature of her close relationship with the president—when he name-checked her during a campaign rally last weekend. We mentioned Harp in a newsletter earlier this week, and my colleague Heather Schwedel wrote a primer for the uninitiated that was among Slate’s most-read articles this week. But the story refuses to die. Searches for Harp’s name, which spiked after Ossoff’s mention, have remained high. And last night, the Daily Beast published two reverential letters that Harp allegedly wrote to Trump in 2023, when she served as a presidential campaign aide. So once more into the rumors we dive.
What do the letters say, and do we know they’re real?
The journalist Michael Wolff, who has been chronicling Trump for years, says he obtained both letters while writing a book about the president’s 2024 campaign. Wolff is an imperfect source; he’s previously been accused of making up quotes. But although no other media outlet has independently confirmed the letters’ authenticity, they match excerpts the New York Times quoted in a 2024 story about Harp joining the White House.
The letters’ full text makes for some pretty uncomfortable reading. In one, apparently written during or after an overseas golfing trip, Harp apologizes for having sprinted after the president for lack of a golf cart. “I want things to always be right between us,” she allegedly wrote, adding, “I see myself being lowered in your eyes and good opinion. That is the fear you see, because I never want to bring you anything but joy. I’m sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down.” That letter was signed “with all my heart” and had Harp’s signature at the bottom. In the second letter, signed “always,” Harp describes being envious of people “whose only ‘job’ seems to be to talk with you, and look pretty,” adding “I want that job!!” She later writes that she misses the days when she and Trump would talk on the phone “about everything and nothing.” As the Daily Beast notes, the letters were written when Harp was 31 and Trump was 76.
That sounds … unusual?
There’s more. Harp started working for Trump in 2022 after a stint parroting his lies about the 2020 election as a TV host at the far-right One America News Network. Her job—which earned her the internal moniker “the human printer”—has included posting remarks Trump dictates to Truth Social, texting on his behalf, and schlepping around a portable printer so she can feed him hard copies of news articles in person. According to the Times, Harp regularly filters content from social media and fringe websites to the president, including a video Trump’s account posted that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes and an article that included an image of him preparing to hit a political opponent’s head with a baseball bat. She is frequently by Trump’s side, often smiling and staring fixedly at him, and once reportedly rode in an SUV trunk to accompany him to a court date because there wasn’t a seat for her. Her proximity to Trump—and to sensitive government information—has concerned some fellow staffers; Harp reportedly worked at the White House without a security clearance for a year. But Trump seems flattered by her devotion. He calls her “sweetie” and has told other aides that “Harp is the only one who loves him as much as his wife and children” and “will never leave him,” the Times reports.
I can’t believe I have to ask this, but … are they having an affair?
We don’t know for sure. Ossoff, notably, didn’t mention a romantic connection. And the facts he referenced in his speech—that Harp was one of the few lucky White House aides to secretly escape Air Force One with the president via an airport catering truck last month—had been reported that week. The Times, CNN, and other outlets that have covered the imbroglio have scrupulously avoided using the word affair. Maybe they’re just being careful. Or maybe Harp’s relationship with Trump really hasn’t tipped into romance.
Are there other potential explanations?
Harp credits a 2018 bill Trump signed with giving her access to an experimental cancer drug that she says saved her life. She is, of course, currently his employee. In both alleged letters, Harp reflects on her father’s suicide and thanks Trump for “always being there for me” as her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.” In a CNN interview this week, Harp’s estranged brother Preston argued that her fascination with Trump stems from her upbringing. “My mom raised us with the idea that American exceptionalism was the correct way of looking at things, that the United States is the boss of the world,” he said, adding, “Trump is, like, everything that my mom taught us to respect. So I think that’s where her infatuation for Trump comes from, honestly, because I don’t think it’s a physical attraction. Let’s get real.” And for what it’s worth, the White House has strenuously denied that there’s anything inappropriate about Trump and Harp’s relationship.
Sure, but Democrats say mean things about this president all the time. Why have Ossoff’s comments about Harp drawn such a heated response from Trumpworld?
As the Atlantic reported this week, the “pushback was so overwhelming, so obviously coordinated, so ugly and personal that it became a story.” On Monday, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung called Ossoff “the biggest cuck loser in politics.” Trump spokesman Davis Ingle labeled him “a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama.” And a White House–run X account flamed a CNN journalist who asked Trump about Ossoff’s remarks, calling her “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession” and “callous and vindictive” in a way that her children would one day be “sickened and embarrassed” by. The core of this counterargument is that it’s sexist to assume that a woman working in the White House is romantically linked to her boss, but all the protest is a bit confusing: For one thing, Trump is the king of innuendo and sexism. Let’s not forget that his political career took off due to his anti-Obama birther slurs, or that he suggested Ted Cruz’s father was connected to the JFK assassination, or the scores of vile remarks he has made about women over the decades. Second, Ossoff never said Trump and Harp were romantically linked. The line that set off the frenzy, in its entirety, is: “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
Then again, maybe the White House’s intended audience is more narrow. Melania Trump has in the past been sensitive to discussions of Trump’s infidelities. In 2018, when news of his hush money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels broke, the first lady reportedly left Washington abruptly and later took a separate car to her husband’s first State of the Union address. “The first lady doesn’t like these types of things,” someone close to the White House told Semafor this week. On Thursday, she and Trump conspicuously held hands at a White House event. “I heard you missed me,” Melania joked to the crowd. “Here I am.”
In Trump and Melania’s defense, hasn’t the president’s orbit always included strange people? So is Harp’s devotion really that unusual?
It’s a fair question. Trump revels in flattery, which has enabled even some pretty controversial figures to get close to him. In his first term, the former Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault Newman reportedly had free access to the Oval Office even though she was later forced out of the administration over a series of scandals—including letting members of her wedding party traipse around the White House on a Saturday. Trump’s frequent proximity to the Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer during the 2024 campaign similarly fed rumors that the two were having an affair. (Loomer denied them, but they also didn’t draw nearly the official pushback that the Harp stories have.) And Trump has been willing to overlook public embarrassments from Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick, and other Cabinet secretaries because they are—or appear to be—true believers. Earlier flattery aimed at the president has even taken epistolary form. In his first term, Trump exchanged what he famously called “love letters” with brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Do we think Ossoff meant to trigger the firestorm he did?
I’m a believer that politics is usually more like Veep than House of Cards; even world-changing events more often unfold by accident or luck than by design. Maybe Ossoff’s reference was just a tossed-off line that happened to blow up. But Ossoff, who’s running for reelection in a swing state that Trump won twice, is a deliberate and relentlessly on-message communicator—sometimes to the point of looking and sounding a little scripted. The notion that he’d ad-lib a mention of Harp, or include one in his prepared remarks without thinking through the possible ramifications, strains believability.
And either way, he has since doubled down. “It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week,” Ossoff told MS NOW, calling Harp fair game. “These White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer with immense power in positions of public trust.” Polls suggest Ossoff will easily win his Senate race this fall, which has stoked speculation that he may run for president in 2028. And if he does, this may not be the last we hear from him about Natalie.
After a long and somewhat uncomfortable few days of news, aren’t you looking forward to the weekend? For your enjoyment and diversion, my colleagues suggest:
A quiz for news junkies: Rep. Byron Donalds banked on Trump’s endorsement to win a Republican primary in which state, where he hopes to become the first Black governor? A judge blocked the Trump administration from relocating FBI headquarters to which federal office facility? Test your knowledge of the week’s big stories and see how your score stacks up against Slate’s VP of brand and communications, Katie Rayford.
A closer look at a Beatles deep cut: Did you know that the Beatles’ all-time most popular song never made the charts—and wasn’t even written by John or Paul? On Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy tells the story of “Here Comes the Sun,” which has taken off in the streaming era.
Advice for a shocking family discovery: What would you do if you discovered you have secret siblings? A Prudie reader has some wise words for how to navigate that situation—and readers of the column weigh in on a variety of other dilemmas, too.
A beef-tallow-induced identity crisis: Earlier this year, Luke Winkie set out to crack the biggest culinary mystery in America: Why has this old-fashioned cooking ingredient become so polarizing? After cooking with it for a week, Luke learned a few things about himself.
Sign Off: Now go forth and be merry! We’ll see you back here on Monday.