Natalie Harp has been Donald Trump’s personal aide since 2022 and has previously written him personal confessions.
A picture that appears to show Donald Trump in a compromising position with his assistant Natalie Harp has surfaced online, but is it real?
Social media has been abuzz with cheating rumours as images appeared to show Trump locking lips with his White House aide in some candid shots.
The image doing the rounds online appeared to depict his 35-year-old aide, Harp, at his golf course in Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland, over the weekend while the pair were conducting a state visit to Ireland.
There, the POTUS visited Trump International Golf Links & Hotel.
Eagle-eyed social media users have spotted clear signs the image is a fake, but it has shone a light on the controversial relationship between the president and his assistant.
Back in August, Trump and Harp’s relationship made headlines after letters were made public which seemed to show her devotion to the 80-year-old.
Her adoration towards Trump apparently started in 2020 when she claimed he was the one who had saved her life as he passed the Right to Try Act.
The bill allows patients to access more experimental treatments, which ended up working on her bone cancer.
“When I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials,” she said at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
“They didn’t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr President. You did, and without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”
Harp’s arrival with Trump to Ireland isn’t anything out of the normal, and with past images of the pair seeming to be genuine on the trip, it’s easy to see how people could believe the kissing images are also real.
However, many have cited the use of AI generation, and pointed out inconsistencies in the image.
For example, one user wrote: “Oh sure! In plain sight on the golf course! Come on AI, stop it!”
Someone else claimed ‘Harp’ had six fingers clutching her golf club.
AI-detection tools also flag it as possibly having been artificially generated, while the White House told Snopes it was ‘clearly a fake photo’.
An image of the pair seemingly kissing has circulated around social media (X)
Harp joined Trump’s presidential campaign in 2022, and she soon began to jet off with him as his ‘personal printer’ thanks to her providing him with files on demand.
But during a trip to Scotland in 2023, she apparently wrote a letter apologising to the president for ’embarrassing’ him after she ran behind his golf cart.
The letter read: “I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland.”
The New York Times has also been a figurehead in revealing some of Harp’s thoughts on the POTUS after it published other correspondence, which appear to show how the work had been impacting her.
One letter read: “I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).”
She signed off: “With all my heart, Natalie.”
Trump’s relationship with Natalie Harp has been called out by Democrats
Last month, Georgia Democrat senator Jon Ossoff told supporters Trump ‘doesn’t want to do the job’, preferring to ‘build his ballroom and travel with Natalie’.
And when Harp accompanied Trump to Doonbeg, a White House account lashed out at journalist Aaron Rupar after he tweeted: “Look who made the trip to Ireland! #TravelWithNatalie.”
The White House’s Rapid Response 47 account retaliated by describing Rupar as a ‘sick, deluded freak’, adding: “President Trump does, in fact, travel with staff.”
Earlier this month, the BBC reviewed financial disclosures which showed Trump had gifted Harp $45,000, as well as gifting the same amount to two other staffers.
The White House told the outlet that Trump ‘has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector’.
They added: “The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”
Featured Image Credit: X
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, US News, Social Media
Britt Jones