Apparently, he likes to say her name with a French accent. “Na-tah-lee!” the president cries out, in that affected tone of faux-formality that one might use with a person they love but do not quite respect, and she comes running, her thin legs teetering on her heels.

Natalie Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old “executive assistant”, was an odd recurring character in the latest blockbuster Trump administration book, Regime Change, by the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. In the book, Harp features like a silent sentinel, ever present but eerily quiet as Trump rants and raves. It’s not exactly clear what the scope of her responsibilities are; though, as Jamelle Bouie points out, the fact that she evidently helps run the president’s social media accounts, which can sway markets and influence his foreign counterparts, makes her one of the most powerful people in the federal government.

But the dignity of Harp’s character does not often seem to equal the gravity of her influence: once, she was caught on video sprinting across a golf course on foot, chasing the golf cart that was speeding the president away to the next hole. For a while, she was called the “human printer” among Trump aides, in reference to the portable printer that Harp carries around with her: one of the primary ways she spends her time appears to be searching for flattering news stories and social media commentary about the president online, and printing it out to nourish his self-regard. But from Haberman and Swan’s reporting, it was not always clear exactly what Harp was thinking. Though many Trumpworld insiders are clearly identifiable as off-the-record sources in their book, Harp does not seem to be among them.

But recently, more of Harp’s own words have come to light. The Daily Beast........

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