NYT's Haberman deciphers White House's 'neon sign' after Natalie Harp cropped out of video

A new detail about President Donald Trump's close aide Natalie Harp has renewed questions about their relationship.

The White House social media account posted video from Sunday's Freedom 250 Grand Prix that appeared to crop the 35-year-old aide out of the frame as the president waved a green flag and first lady Melania Trump stood at his side, and New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman discussed the continuing scandal on "CNN This Morning.

"Jonathan [Swan] and I get into thispretty, not extensively, inthe book ['Regime Change'], but we do write about Natalie Harp and how purelydevotional she is to Donald Trump," Haberman said. "Those letters were left,and we write about them again inthe book, in his personalspaces, during the interregnumperiod when he was out ofoffice. One of them said, 'Youare all that matters to me.'These letters and some of herbehavior alarmed people aroundthe president, then candidate,including the Secret Service,and they spoke to people aboutwhat was happening at the time."

"There's two factorshere," Haberman continued. "One is she is 10feet away from him in the Oval Office all the time. Shesupplies him not with all of hisinformation, he obviously getsintelligence briefings and soforth that she doesn't prepare,but she provides him sort ofthis alternate version ofinformation, including thatplays into his view of the 'deep state,' in his words, of his owngovernment, of being suspiciousof what he is being told, andshe was one of the people who hetook with him on that plane."

"When the older Air Force One wasa decoy plane, very small groupof people," she added. "So that's part ofwhy there is a focus. It mattersnot because, you know, thesalacious implications asidethat [Sen. Jon Ossoff] did and othershave done, it matters becauseshe's in government and she'sclose to the president."

Harp's Jan. 6-era tweets are drawing scrutiny now, and while election denial is essentially a requirement for Trump loyalists, Haberman said the attention stems from Harp's unusual position inside government rather than from the content of the posts themselves.

"She is a neon sign of why this term is so radically different than term one," Haberman said. "For all of the belief that there were plenty of sycophants in term one, there was no one like this."

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