Trump, 80, Humiliated as Natalie Harp Corrects Him to His Face
The aide is ever-present, even during magazine interviews.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
President Donald Trump needed his devoted aide Natalie Harp to correct him when he got the time of his own White House meeting wrong during an interview.
The 80-year-old turned to his so-called “human printer” while being asked about an upcoming luncheon with artificial intelligence leaders in an interview with TIME on Monday.
Natalie Harp: She's everywhere.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
“Tomorrow’s meeting. What time is that meeting tomorrow? Two?” Trump asked Harp.
“Noon, in the East Room,” Harp replied.
Trump welcomed tech leaders to the White House.
Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS
He then needed yet more help from Harp.
“So we have everybody,” he said. “Give me a list of the people at the meeting.”
Natalie Harp boards Marine One near the White House. She is often seen in the president’s immediate orbit.
Evan Vucci/REUTERS
The meeting brought together leaders from firms including Google and Anthropic, as well as Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and X CEO Elon Musk.
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In the interview with TIME, Trump offered a garbled explanation of his plans for the meeting.
“Well, look, you know, this isn’t like I’m building a building, which I can do out of my back pocket. It’s easier to do that for me, and it’s what I’ve been doing,” he said.
“This is a whole new world, probably mostly good, but some bad too. And it’s a very powerful world. It’s a very—potentially really could be good for medical. I mean, some of the things they’re coming up with now that they never even thought about. But with good comes bad, and we want them, we want all of them to behave for themselves.”
The leaders signed an accord to implement the self-policing of AI firms, in the hope that it will stop them from creating products that could be harmful to humanity. However, the agreement involves no government oversight and wouldn’t require companies to make any findings public.
During the same luncheon, Trump also signed an executive order renaming AI “Super Intelligence.”
Harp has become an increasingly prominent character in the Trump administration, rarely seen away from Trump’s side. She has also appeared in several awkward images, including one running alongside a caravan of golf buggies.
Another image captured a seemingly tense exchange Tuesday as the pair returned to the White House from the launch of America.org, which promises users “simple answers only from official government sources.”
A sour-faced Trump points toward the ground near Harp, who smiles back at him.
Harp was the only aide quoted in the TIME interview, published Thursday alongside a separate story headlined, “Donald Trump Has Appeared on the Cover of TIME More Than Anyone Else.”
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