Letters from Trump's aide published in the U.S.: "You are everything that matters to me"

The American outlet The Daily Beast has published two letters whose author, according to the outlet, is Natalie Harp — executive assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Earlier, individual excerpts from these same letters were cited by The New York Times. According to the newspaper, the letters were written in 2023, during or immediately after Trump's trip to Scotland and Ireland, that is, before the start of his second presidential term.

The first letter begins with the words "I am so sorry." Its author explains that the previous evening she had been left alone in a van by the customs terminal without a passport, became flustered and called the addressee, when she should have turned to the Secret Service.

She separately apologizes for walking on foot across the golf course: according to her, on the first day she was told that golf carts were not being used, and on the second day a club employee asked her and others to continue on foot. "If I did anything else that caused you trouble, forgive me," the author writes.
Further on, the tone of the letter changes. The author admits that she had been distracted all week: she forgot to eat during the day and slept only a few hours. She writes that she is having a hard time coping with the death of her father and that she has begun to react painfully to other people's remarks — by her explanation, not because other people's opinions matter to her, but because she sees herself falling in the addressee's eyes. "I don't want to bring you anything but joy," the letter says. In the final part the author thanks the addressee, calling him "my Protector and Defender in this life," and signs off: "With all my heart, Natalie."

The second letter, according to its author, is the very note she wanted to write, "but the apologies had to come first." It is devoted to the results of the trip: the author writes that for the first time in a long while she was forced to "disconnect" from technology, that she could be out on the course without devices and without keeping track of time, and that she did not have to be a "human printer." That nickname, according to American media reports, Harp received for regularly printing out publications and reports for Trump.

In the same letter the author admits that she came close to burnout, and writes that she began to envy those whose "job," as it seems to her, comes down to talking with the addressee and looking good. "I want that job!!" the text says. The author recalls the time when she worked in television, when the addressee would call her and they would talk "about everything and nothing," and writes that she wants to bring back the earlier format of communication: "We shouldn't have to talk about work all the time!!" She describes her position as an intermediate one — between the staff members and those with whom the addressee socializes on the plane and over dinner.

The second letter ends with a request that her mistakes be pointed out to her: the author writes that the addressee has every right to reprimand her, "because no one knows or cares about me more." There too is a paraphrased line from a classic novel and the addition: "it is I who am unworthy." In a postscript, the author explains that her hands looked worse in Scotland and Ireland because in the cold old scars turn blue, and adds that she is still recovering.

The letters were provided to The Daily Beast by Trump biographer Michael Wolff, who obtained them while working on the book All or Nothing about the 2024 presidential campaign. According to Wolff's account, the letter was left in a stack of printouts, was discovered by campaign staff and photographed, after which the images circulated among campaign workers.

The publication came amid heightened attention to Harp's figure. On August 11, Trump confirmed that on the return from the NATO summit in Turkey he switched to another plane because of a security threat. According to The Washington Post, boarding the military aircraft along with him were Harp, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino and Oval Office Director of Operations Walt Nauta, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remained on the previous plane together with the press pool.
Commenting on the publication of the letters, White House press secretary Davis Ingle called Harp one of the most loyal and hardworking staffers on the president's team and characterized the media materials as a continuation of attacks on the administration.

He neither confirmed nor denied the authorship of the letters. The outlet HuffPost notes that it did not verify the authenticity of the documents independently, however the White House did not deny Harp's authorship either to The Daily Beast or to The New York Times.

Natalie Harp, who is 35 years old, previously worked as a television host on the One America News channel, and then moved to Trump's team.