The brother of White House aide Natalie Harp claims that her “infatuation” with President Donald Trump stems from her difficult relationship with their father.
Preston Harp, the estranged brother of the 80-year-old president’s favorite personal assistant, told the Daily Beast that his 34-year-old sister was distant from their late father and was always looking for a replacement.
“The way my sister interacted with and treated my dad throughout the years, it was like she wished she had a different dad,” he said.
Preston, 38, who now lives in Nicaragua, also believes that Natalie and Trump have bonded over American exceptionalism, an ideology that believes that the U.S. is inherently superior to all other nations.
The belief has much in common with Trump’s “America First” agenda and his second-term push to strip negative aspects of U.S. history from federal sites.
“While much of the media has focused on questioning whether her relationship is something scandalous, that is not where my mind goes personally. Maybe it is because I just can’t imagine something like that, but to me this is 100 percent an infatuation based on an unfortunate shared ideology of U.S. exceptionalism,” Preston told the Daily Beast.
“I think that she does see Trump as a kind of father figure because he embodies the doctrine of American exceptionalism.”
In contrast, Preston said their own father, Robert Harp, who died by suicide in July 2020, did not “embody American exceptionalism in the least.”
He told the Daily Beast that he had witnessed first-hand his sister’s yearning for a different father. “Though I moved out at 18, I remember many Christmases, Easters, and Father’s Day and Mother’s Day get-togethers where I noticed this,” he said.
Concerns about Natalie’s close relationship with Trump have been raised for years. The 34-year-old, who is a near-constant presence at the 80-year-old president’s side, is reportedly so devoted to him that she was even flagged by the Secret Service as a potential security risk.
She has earned the nickname the “human printer” because she constantly follows Trump around with a portable printer, supplying him with paper copies of flattering social media posts and news articles, as well as other documents and emails for him to read on paper rather than having the president view them on a screen.
Harp is also blamed for enabling Trump’s social media addiction by printing out numerous Truth Social drafts for his approval before logging on to the president’s account to reshare them late into the night.
Harp, a former host at the far-right network One America News Network (OAN), would also reportedly leave fawning letters for Trump describing her complete devotion to him.
According to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, the new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Harp would leave gushing letters for Trump to find in his “personal spaces” during the 2024 campaign, including one that read: “You are all that matters to me.”
The string of love letters reportedly alarmed future White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who asked herself, “Where am I?” according to Haberman and Swan.
In 2025, Michael Wolff revealed in his book All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America that the “aggressiveness” of Harp’s attention toward Trump was such that the Secret Service considered her a “potential danger” to the future president.
In a previous bombshell revelation, Preston claimed he became estranged from his family in the wake of his father’s suicide because his mother and sister wanted to say Robert Harp had died in his sleep.
“It’s hard to believe that’s my sister and my mom,” Preston told The Daily Mail. “I can’t connect with that vibe, so I’m just going to let it be.”
When approached for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt offered a boilerplate response. “Natalie Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump’s team,” Leavitt said.
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.
