TOI Correspondent from Washington: The US capital is never short of political scandal, sexual intrigue, and salacious scuttlebutt — to the extent that Playboy magazine once offered a “sex tour” of the city, pointing visitors toward such scandal-scarred landmarks as the White House and Capitol Hill. Washington’s latest soap opera comes with a printer, a Lululemon bag, and presidential proximity: Natalie Harp.Harp, 35, has recently emerged as the President’s fiercely devoted aide, accompanying him to political rallies, golf outings, and foreign tours, including a starring role in the clandestine plane switch in Turkey. More intriguing reports previously have her staying in a locker room and jumping into the trunk of an SUV to stay close to Trump.Among her jobs: printing and bringing to his notice articles he will enjoy, taking dictation, and feeding his social media mill with memes. But in wild, wild Washington, the knives are now out for Harp over the extraordinary access enjoyed by the special assistant dubbed Trump’s “Eva Braun” in some quarters.Harp’s devotion has roots deeper than MAGA. Raised with her brother Preston in a conservative Christian household, she was taught, he says, a “completely whitewashed version of history” to believe in American exceptionalism. “She thinks that the whitewashing of history is actually a ‘correction,’ like Trump,” the estranged brother scoffed in interviews on Tuesday, emerging from the woodwork to diss on the sibling’s political rise. He called Trump a “national embarrassment” and said her relationship with him was “very unhealthy.”Their father, Robert Harp, who died by suicide in 2020, was said to be a powerful influence and mentor to the siblings till Preston seemingly turned left and Natalie turned right. Within weeks, according to scuttlebutt in the Trump orbit, Natalie made her way to Mar-a-Lago, getting into Trump’s communications team. She first came to national attention after publicly crediting Trump’s Right to Try legislation with helping her obtain experimental treatment after a battle with bone cancer.Trump subsequently celebrated her story, including at the 2020 Republican National Convention. Her Trump devotion subsequently became the stuff of Washington legend as she moved into the White House as a special assistant to the President.According to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their book Regime Change, Harp left adoring notes in Trump’s private spaces, including one saying, “You are all that matters to me.” Another thanked him for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.” Trump reportedly told aides that Harp loved him as much as his wife and children, and that while others would leave to make money, “she’ll never leave me.”Washington, naturally, has questions, the timing of the tattle making irresistible tabloid fodder. Melania Trump has been conspicuously absent from Washington, missing major events and not seen publicly for long stretches. Meanwhile, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s machine famously combative press secretary, is leaving the podium for motherhood and a MAGA mission for the mid-term election. This has left Harp in the spotlight — and the media strumming a scandal.Of course, there is no evidence Trump and Harp are canoodling; proximity is not proof of romance. The more consequential question is who controls the information reaching an 80-year-old president; the issue is not whether she sits beside him but what she places in front of him.The US President, meanwhile, is almost scandal-proof — echoing a Louisiana politician who once said only a dead girl or a live boy in his bed would hurt his political prospects. Trump’s political career has survived accusations of sexual misconduct, including rape allegations, consorting with an adult star, and a felony conviction arising from hush-money payments. By Trumpian standards, an aide sleeping in a locker room and carrying a printer hardly qualifies as a palace fire. Which leaves Washington with its newest mystery: not “Are they having an affair?” but “What is she whispering into the king’s ear?”
