President Trump's late-night social media barrages aren't just the work of an insomniac president—they're also the product of a little-known aide with a big role. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump's Truth Social feed, which has become a high-volume mix of his own statements and reposts from partisan and fringe accounts, is heavily curated and pushed out by executive assistant Natalie Harp. She compiles printed drafts of potential posts—often screenshots, memes, and clips lifted from X and other platforms—gets Trump's sign-off, then logs into his account to publish them in rapid-fire bursts, sometimes outside of normal working hours.
Those bursts can be intense, and they often boost conspiracy theories. On a recent Monday night, Trump's account pumped out 55 posts between about 10pm and 1am, many recycling false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and calling for legal action against Democrats, including former President Barack Obama. Since Trump's return to the White House, there have been 44 nights with a dozen or more posts sent out between 8pm and 6am, including one December evening that saw almost 160 posts. Overall, Trump and his team have published at least 8,800 posts this term, helping his following on the platform grow to 12.6 million.
Trump also does publish some posts himself, administration officials say. Harp's role has drawn concern inside the White House, per the Journal, as she usually doesn't run draft posts past the chief of staff, communications workers, or national security staff. She has insisted that she answers only to Trump. Earlier this year, at Trump's direction, she posted a video that included racist imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, as well as an AI image portraying Trump in a Christ-like pose. Both were later deleted after being slammed by members of both parties, with a White House official attributing the post about the Obamas to an editing mistake.
The Independent notes that Harp has been working for Trump since at least 2022, and that she has publicly expressed gratitude to the president and compared him to Jimmy Stewart's character in It's a Wonderful Life. "I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for you," Harp said during a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, claiming that the president's healthcare policies helped save her life. A follow-up in the Washington Post doesn't seem to back up that claim.
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