President Donald Trump's top "cheerleader" in the White House has recently gotten a new role, and it exposed her boss's biggest weakness, according to a new column.
Natalie Harp, who has earned monikers ranging from Trump's "human printer" to his "human binkie," has seemingly become the bodyguard of Trump's "fragile ego," Renée Graham, a columnist at The Boston Globe, argued in a new op-ed. That job apparently involves providing Trump with the information he wants to hear, rather than information about reality, she argued.
"Harp’s official title is special assistant to the president and executive assistant to the president. But Harp, who reportedly works seven days a week, is really Trump’s main cheerleader. She filters out news about his cratering poll numbers, stays up late to craft his often inflammatory social media posts, and, more than anything, acts as a bodyguard for her boss’s fragile ego," Graham wrote.
Harp has been the subject of intense speculation in recent weeks after some of her private letters to Trump surfaced. In one of the notes, Harp claims that Trump is all that matters to her. She has also credited the president with saving her life by allowing experimental cancer drugs into the U.S., a claim that some medical experts have said is implausible.
However, Harp's most important job at the White House appears to be giving Trump "skewed information" that he already agrees with, Graham argued.
"When Trump denies reality — such as downplaying the deteriorating conditions suffered for months by service members on the USS Abraham Lincoln — one can guess where he’s getting his skewed information," she wrote. "For example, dire news about the many repercussions of the unpopular US/Israel war against Iran seems like the kind of thing that Harp would skip in her portable printer briefings."
"Only now have voters realized that Harp’s low profile never equaled low influence. Talking about her isn’t “sexist” or “misogynistic” as some Republicans have claimed," Graham wrote. "With a president this erratic, it’s important to know who has his ear and what they are telling him to believe."
