President Donald Trump's close personal aide Natalie Harp, recently dubbed his human "binkie," has become one of the most controversial figures in his administration, and multiple sources revealed how she controls the information he relies on to make decisions.
Scrutiny of the 35-year-old Harp's role intensified this month after Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) publicly highlighted her constant presence alongside the 80-year-old Trump — now Zeteo is reporting on how the executive aide has leveraged her relationship with the president.
"If you’re a senior administration official, Cabinet-level appointee, or a political activist close to the White House who wants Donald Trump to blast something out on social media, you can just ask the president directly," wrote Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng. "You can shoot him a text, even. Or, as is now common practice, you can ask the one and only Natalie."
"Since at least 2024, one of the things that’s cropped up in my own reporting is that Harp, as strange and off-putting as the idea may be, is one of the most influential people on the planet today," Suebsaeng added. "That is largely because of her direct access to President Trump and how she feeds him a constant diet of online agitprop and kookery. It is also due to the fact that she helps control his MAGA social-media megaphone."
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has shown Harp anti-immigration content on multiple occasions with instructions to get it posted quickly, according to two unnamed sources. One unnamed Trump adviser told Zeteo they successfully got a crypto-related post published simply by asking Harp.
The report also linked Harp to a February incident in which Trump shared a racist video depicting the Obamas as apes.
Zeteo described Harp as unpopular among senior Trump staff, who reportedly view her devotion to the president as unusual, even as they avoid criticizing her publicly given her proximity to him. The outlet also reported that people seeking pardons or commutations have approached Harp directly.
The White House has not issued a detailed on-the-record response to the Zeteo report. The report characterized Harp not as a policymaker but as a gatekeeper who influences Trump's mood and, at times, his decision-making by controlling what information and content reaches him.
As one example, the report cited an unnamed official who described a meeting meant to focus on an economic matter that instead was dominated by Trump's complaints about an elections-related article Harp had printed out for him from a far-right website.
Zeteo said Harp appears driven less by policy than by personal devotion to Trump, though the outlet reported she has taken a particular interest in election-fraud claims and content popular on the online right.
"The president of the United States – who is furiously trying to rig elections at home while plunging us all deeper into no-end-in-sight wars on Iran, his fellow Americans, and f---ing Canada even – is living in his own head, a frenzied world that is in part of Natalie Harp’s own crafting," Subsaeng wrote. "A whisper or a printed-out piece of far-right garbage can swiftly affect President Trump’s mood and actually, according to those who’ve seen it happen, tinker with his official decision-making."
